


no porch light on to pull me home

by smc_27



Series: before i knew which life was mine [3]
Category: The Society (TV 2019)
Genre: F/M, TW: Suicide, i warned for violence it isn't especially graphic but it is there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:15:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 38,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26175577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smc_27/pseuds/smc_27
Summary: Because she thinks he needs it, she slips her arms around his shoulders before he can walk away. He takes a deep breath, his arms going around her waist, his head leaning against her, face against her neck a little. God, maybe she needed it, too.It’s insane that she cares as much as she does. It really is. But they’ve always buzzed with some kind of potential, something just more than friends, even though they’ve never really been friends at all. She’s just not going to leave him on his own, not with all this happening.
Relationships: Harry Bingham/Allie Pressman
Series: before i knew which life was mine [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1872871
Comments: 15
Kudos: 73





	no porch light on to pull me home

**Author's Note:**

> 💛 Part 3! I hope you all enjoy this; it may be my fave other world so far. And I say so far because while I have only written three of these, the door is always open for more.
> 
> There is a bit of violence in this but I did try to keep it suspenseful instead of graphic. I did add a warning and tag appropriately just in case.

The first person she sees who she’s assuming is also in town for this thing is Harry Bingham. 

Classic.

She’s walking to the grocery store because her mom’s making a carrot cake and needs powdered sugar and cream cheese and Allie’s only been here since this morning but already feels like she might be going crazy with her mom’s constant attention. She’s texting Cassandra, asking again what time tomorrow her train gets in, when she hears an engine approaching and looks up. It’s Harry in yet another obnoxious sports car - she honestly doesn’t think she’s seen him in the same car twice in the entire time she’s known he could drive - driving down Main Street. Allie registers that she’s glad she’s wearing a cute outfit, pretends not to see him even when he raises his hand off the wheel. 

She’s at the register in the store, her debit card in hand when he walks up and leans his hip on the counter right there next to her. As if...as if they’re _together_ , or something. She just gives him a dubious look and taps her card on the machine, reaches for the canvas bag of items, and tells the cashier she doesn’t need a receipt. 

Then she brushes past Harry and he laughs and follows her. 

“You’re not even going to say hello?” he asks, teasing lilt to his voice. He spins his car keys in his hand and she gives him a smile she wishes she could say is fake. 

“Hello.”

“Not so hard, was it?” They walk outside and his car’s right there. It’s tempting to tell him to take her home so she doesn’t have to walk the 15 minutes back to her parents’ place. But she’s not going to do that. 

Historically, when she gets into Harry’s car, things progress too quickly. 

“Can I help you?” she asks, sort of laughing, because she doesn’t want to be a proper jerk. 

“I was just being friendly,” he tells her, and there’s something earnest about it that makes her take it seriously. “Been a while, hasn’t it?”

It’s been at least two years. She knows because she remembers exactly how it felt to leave his place in the morning in a sweater he lent her because it was cooler than it had been the day before when she arrived. It had been October, or something. And…

No. She really doesn’t need or want to think of the details. 

“Yeah,” she says, and he’s never been rude to her and she shouldn’t be rude back. He’s maybe loosely referencing that the last time they saw one another it was after they’d hooked up, but it’s so long ago now that there’s no reason for her to assume he’s trying to be an asshole about it. “You look good, Harry.” 

He tilts his head just a little, his eyes dropping to check her out. He doesn’t even bother to hide it. Yeah, she’s very glad she’s wearing a cute outfit. “You too,” he says, just slightly, _slightly_ suggestive. Like if she told him to take her somewhere right now he wouldn’t say no. “You’re here for ye olde celebration?”

She laughs, nods. It’s the 300th anniversary of the founding of the town. Which she thinks is bogus, because like, there were people on this land before a bunch of white people decided to call it West Ham. Her dad did _not_ think that was a good enough argument for her to not come to this thing. It’s a whole weekend - five days, really - of celebrations and it’s a matter of familial pride, or something, and everyone with kids is supposed to make sure their kids come, especially if they were born here. The population of the town is going to like, quadruple for the celebration. 

“You?” she asks. 

He scoffs, gives her a look. “Mom’s the mayor. Would’ve been a national embarrassment if I hadn’t shown.”

“Seems pretty self-important, don’t you think?”

He grins at her, shrugs his shoulders. “Just passing on what I was told.” She laughs again. She shouldn’t give him the satisfaction of it, but whatever. They’ve always sort of gotten along like this. And she thinks his self-deprecating humour just hits differently with her; she’s never seen him really do it with anyone else. “Drive you home?”

She shakes her head immediately. “I’m good.” He blinks slowly like he’s maybe a little disappointed. Here’s the thing: since she was 17, she’s always been a little flattered that he seems to like her as much as he does. “I’ll see you around, probably.”

“Tonight at the opening ceremony?”

She shrugs. “If you’re lucky.”

His brow ticks up. “Bye, Allie.”

He slides into his car and cranks the engine, hangs his arm out the window in a wave as he drives past her again. 

Sam and Will are at the house when she gets there. Her mom asks her what took so long, says something about the cream cheese softening in the bag. Allie doesn’t say anything about running into Harry. Will reciprocates Harry’s feelings towards him. Sam doesn’t really care and never has; she thinks, actually, he and Harry have always had sort of a decent rapport, though she also thinks they haven’t spoken in years.

But her parents…

Her parents can’t stand his mom. It’s a whole long story involving the election and Allie’s dad thinking he was maybe going to run and Karen Bingham...she didn’t exactly threaten him not to, but she did tell him it’d be a miserable time if he tried to get anything through because she knew everyone and would make things difficult for him. Okay, so maybe that’s a bit of a threat. Allie thinks small town politics are sort of ridiculous, but also knows how important they are. Like, she majored in poli sci before graduate studies in international relations; she gets how this works. 

This isn’t Montagues and Capulets level stuff, but she knows her parents don’t like Karen Bingham, and the feeling is likely mutual, though Allie doesn’t think she’s ever had a single interaction with the woman and probably wouldn’t know her if she passed her on the street. 

Her dad fires up the grill for an early dinner before the opening ceremony, grumbling the whole time about how _Mayor Bingham_ is liable to make this a rally for her re-election. Will looks at Allie as if to ask if her dad is still going on about this. She just closes her eyes and shakes her head like she really doesn’t want to get started on it. 

During Karen Bingham’s speech, Harry and his sister stand next to her on the stage on the green. He’s in dark slacks and a nice shirt, the wind blowing his hair just so. Sam signs that Harry’s hot as ever, and Allie just laughs and agrees. No sense arguing with facts. 

… … …

It’s easy to spot Allie in the crowd. He can see a lot of people from here on the stage. Helena and Luke, Grizz, Jason and Clark. A ton of people from high school. A ton of people who graduated before him. Many of them with kids or wedding rings or both. Partners with them who Harry’s never seen before and doesn’t really care about. 

But Allie...She’s wearing the same jeans, shirt and little blazer she was wearing earlier. She looks good. God, she looks good. He doesn’t remember the last time he saw her and didn’t think she looked good. Not that he sees her often, or anything. They went to the same school, but their paths hardly ever crossed. When they did he liked it, but he wasn’t seeking her out, or anything, and he knows she wasn’t exactly looking for him, either. So don’t let him make it sound like he’s been hung up on her for years. He just thinks she’s hot, likes talking to her like he did earlier, and always thought it was a little crazy that they barely knew each other in high school. 

They’ve hooked up exactly three times. The last being two years ago, or something, when she left with his sweater on and never returned it. It was an expensive one, too. Looked good on her. He doesn’t care, really, but… Okay, he won’t lie. He was sort of hoping that since they were older that last time - instead of 18 or 20 and just hooking up because they were young and foolish - that maybe they’d get in touch with each other. But they never did. He texted her once when he thought he saw her on campus, but she never replied. It’s fine. He didn’t even know if her number was the same. Probably not. 

She’s standing there with her arms crossed while his mom talks, giving this speech about town pride and being all-American, and other shit that sounds a lot like patriotic bullshit to him. He watches Allie, and she catches his eye a couple times, too. 

Then he sees Kelly show up with Elle, and then there’s Becca, and then his mom’s saying his name, bragging about him finishing top of his class at Columbia law and joining Gage Whitney Pace, and then about his sister, starting at Yale in the fall. His sister turns her head a little, says something that makes him laugh, and he elbows her a little to make her stop. Their mom’ll kill them if they make a scene and she fucking knows that. 

The ceremonial flame is lit by the oldest resident of the town, Mrs. Hamelin, who grew up here and is 93, and Harry helps her down off the stage after because Jesus Christ, they didn’t even get a railing for the steps. 

There’s a beer tent and a band sets up on the stage after the speech, and Harry’s mom introduces him to a bunch of people he doesn’t want to know or care about. He catches sight of Kelly, a drink in her hand and Becca’s hand in her other one. Helena comes over to say hi, hugs him, and Luke’s tagging along beside her, so they shake hands. He hasn’t seen them in a year or so. God, it must be more, actually. Helena’s parents had had a holiday party he went to because his mom insisted. 

Allie’s across the green, cup of beer dangling by her side as she laughs with Will, Sam and Grizz. He knows he’s got no reason to go over there, but as usual when he’s even this close to her, he can’t think of a reason to stop himself. 

Her eyes meet his as he’s walking over, and then she’s looking away, and he realizes she’s noticed his mom coming to run interference, take him by the arm. She tells him something about needing to meet Mr. Gad, who runs the theatre camp outside of town now, the one she donates to in Harry’s name every year. It seems stupid, but he doesn’t stop it. 

There’s a gasp when the ceremonial flame goes out. Harry watches it flicker out and die, and then his mom and a bunch of people are rushing over there to fuss with it. It’s just windy out. What’d they expect? 

Then Allie’s leaning up behind him, her shoulder brushing his back and she says, “Uh oh. Town disaster.” 

He laughs, turns a little, and she moves to stand side by side with him. He watches her sip her drink. She looks like she’s had a few. Not that he minds in the slightest. He remembers how she gets when she’s drinking. He should definitely stop that line of thinking.

“Truly the end of the world,” he says, playing along with her. 

“What d’you think?” she asks, and then licks her bottom lip. “Someone getting fired?”

“Bare minimum,” he confirms, knowing his mom too well to think otherwise. “If not full exile, never to be heard from again.” 

Allie huffs out a laugh, takes another drink. Then she looks up at him, seems to remember, maybe, what she learned about him and drinking last time they hung out. That he doesn’t do it. Can’t. Not anymore. She lowers her cup again. 

“I better go,” she stage whispers, and he turns to her so their shoulders are square. 

“Yeah? Why’s that?”

“If my parents see me talking to a _Bingham_ , they might kick me out of the family.”

His brow furrows. He doesn’t know what the fuck _that_ means. Like, he knows Cassandra's never been his biggest fan, but he also knows he hasn’t seen Cassandra since literally high school. In fact, he’s only just now wondering why she’s not here tonight. He doesn’t care in the slightest. He has no idea why this would be a thing for her parents, unless these two grown fucking adults are still going off information from their daughter from when she was actually a teenager. 

“What?”

She shakes her head. “Story for another time.”

He grins, crosses his arms. “Yeah? There’s gonna be another time?” he asks, because...Look, he just likes her. He’s always reminded of that really easily. 

“Could be,” she says quietly, looking up at him through her lashes. 

Harry pulls out his phone, opens up a new contact and types in her first name with the yellow heart next to it, hands her his phone. 

She laughs when she sees it. “What’s this?” she chuckles, showing him the screen as if he doesn’t know what's there. “Need to differentiate me from all the other Allies you have saved?”

It’s funny. It’s cute. But also: “You don’t remember?”

She freezes, looks up, only half her number keyed in so far. “Remember what?”

He just shakes his head, smiling. “If you don’t remember, I’m keeping my secret.”

She shrugs, finishes with her number, hits save. “That’s fine,” she says all flirty. He wonders if he could text her even this weekend and they could… “I have secrets, too.”

She walks away without giving him a chance to respond. He has no fucking idea what that means, what she could possibly be referring to, but he likes the sound of it. Likes the way she said it and the look on her face and the way her hips move as she leaves. 

… … …

It’s quiet when she wakes up in the morning. Actually, she thinks, in some weird way, that’s what’s woken her; the fact that there’s been no clatter downstairs, no talking, no sounds of her mom making breakfast like all the other times she’s visited since she moved out. It’s just...silent. She throws back the covers after checking the time. It’s way too late for there to be no one else up. 

The kitchen is empty when she walks in. There’s no note on the whiteboard on the fridge - where her parents have always left notes if they’re going out. There are no dishes in the sink, there’s no coffee in the pot. Both sets of her parents keys are on the little hook by the front door. She walks back upstairs. Their bedroom door is wide open, bed made neatly, no sign of either of them. Cassandra’s train wasn’t supposed to get in for hours; they wouldn’t have gone without her, and they wouldn’t have gone so early. 

The guest bedroom door is closed. Will’s staying with them, as is typical for any time he visits West Ham. She taps gently, hears movement inside and feels such a rush of relief at just that. He opens the door, bare chested and sleepy. 

“You’re here,” she says, which she realizes may be a little crazy. “My parents aren’t here.”

He looks at her with an expression that says he’s as surprised by this as she is. “What?”

She shrugs. “They’re gone. The keys are here. Maybe they went for a walk?” He doesn’t look any more convinced than she is. 

He tells her he’ll be downstairs in a few, and she nods and can’t shake this awful feeling. But she heads back downstairs, too, starts the coffee and looks out the window. She sees...absolutely nothing. She watches for as long as it takes the coffee to brew a full pot. Not a single car. Not a single person on the sidewalk. Nothing. 

She checks the messages she sent them before she started the coffee. They’re unsent. She tries calling, and it says the number is out of service. She tries calling Cassandra, texting...Nothing. 

Will comes downstairs just as she’s starting to panic, says, “Becca’s house is empty, too. Her mom’s…”

“What the fuck?” Allie asks sort of urgently. She doesn’t even have anyone else’s number except Becca and Sam and Kelly. “What’s going on, Will?”

He shakes his head like this makes as much sense to him as it does her. Which, of course. But still. She wants answers. It’d be so easy if he had them. If Cassandra’s train was early, or something, and they went to pick her up. If it’s other people…

“They’re checking Kelly’s now.”

Allie feels like she might cry. Will can tell, because they’ve been best friends for over 10 years. He wraps his arms around her, tells her they’ll figure it out. She doesn’t want to be an asshole about it, knows he doesn’t have family, doesn’t have the same investment here that she does. It’s not fair and she’s not going to say it. It doesn’t matter. There’s no need to throw it in his face. It wouldn’t help either of them.

She gets a call from an unknown number just after she’s pulled away, answers, and Will pours them each a coffee. 

“Allie?”

Harry sounds relieved she’s even answered. 

“Hi. Hey.” She closes her eyes, realizes she’s relieved, too. “Are you…”

“Something’s happening,” he says, quiet, like a confession. Not like he knows what it is, but he knows it’s something big. She knows that, too. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m...Will’s here. My parents are…”

“My mom and sister, too.” She’s thankful he didn’t make her say it out loud. “I don’t have anyone else’s number. Except Kelly and Becca.”

Allie nods, though she thinks it’s weird he’s not more well connected. “Are you okay?”

“No,” he breathes out, and she shouldn’t be as immediately worried as she is, but she feels a little frantic. A little more frantic. “I’m freaking out.”

“Just...Stay put. I’ll come over.” Will gives her a look, finally, like he doesn’t know who she’s talking to or why she’d leave and if it’s even safe to do it. He, again, being her best friend, knows about her history with Harry. Most of it. That she lost her virginity to him. That she’s been with him since. But not the details. Not that Harry has her number or that she’d rush to check on him. “Harry?”

Will looks even more confused. Like the fact it’s Harry on the phone is yet another remarkable thing about today. 

“Yeah,” he breathes. He takes two big breaths in a row. “Yeah. Come over.”

She hangs up, ignores the look on Will’s face, and goes upstairs to put something other than her pajama shorts and top on. She should shower, but she’s freaking out a little at the way Harry’d sounded. She doesn’t know him well, but she’s feeling a lot about the fact that she’s the only one he has, really. If he’s asking her to come over, it’s because he needs someone and she’s the only one who can help. She’s not going to leave him on his own. 

“Allie.”

“I’ll be back in a bit,” she says, and looks over her shoulder before she leaves. He has her number, and he knows where she’s going. Will nods when she says, “Go to Sam.”

The town is weird. It’s dead. It’s...Everything feels eerie. Flags for the event hanging on the light posts just like they were yesterday. The green set up for the events, the stage there and everything. The ceremonial flame there, still glowing. Allie remembers last night when it went out, Harry saying about someone being exiled, and she wonders… 

No. That makes no sense. That’s stupid.

She doesn’t remember his address, but she remembers the neighbourhood and what his house looks like, so she drives fast enough to not keep him waiting, but slowly enough to pull into the right driveway. The place looks exactly like she remembers it. Crisp, New England aesthetic, manicured and landscaped lawn, American flag hanging from the porch, and Harry’s car - the one from yesterday morning - parked in the circular driveway. 

He meets her at the door before she can even knock. He looks like hell. Scared. Messy hair. Plain white tee shirt. His hand is shaking when he reaches for hers and pulls her in, like he doesn’t know what’s out there and what might happen to her if she’s not inside. 

Because she thinks he needs it, she slips her arms around his shoulders before he can walk away. He takes a deep breath, his arms going around her waist, his head leaning against her, face against her neck a little. God, maybe she needed it, too.

It’s insane that she cares as much as she does. It really is. But they’ve always buzzed with some kind of potential, something just more than friends, even though they’ve never really been friends at all. She’s just not going to leave him on his own, not with all this happening. 

He’s holding her tightly, taking these big breathes, one after another. She realizes they’ve never been this close when they weren’t in bed. It’s a stupid thought. 

“You’re okay,” she says, the first words she’s spoken, and he doesn’t really respond. At all. She slips her hand into his hair and he pulls away a little. 

“I’m...what the fuck is this?” he asks, and she shakes her head. She doesn’t think he actually expected her to know. “I drove to the exits.”

She reels back. _What_? Was he just going to _leave_?

“You…” But he’s still here. 

He just shakes his head. That...means nothing right now. “The roads end, Allie.” Her breath catches in her throat. What does he mean the roads _end_? “What is this?”

She doesn’t think he actually expects an answer. She needs to tell Will, though. 

“Can I have some coffee?” she asks, and Harry just blinks at her like this is the craziest thing she could’ve said. “I really...I haven’t had any. I wanna sit down and…”

“Come in,” he tells her, pads in his bare feet to his massive kitchen. There’s a fancy coffee maker he puts a mug beneath a particular spout on and beans start grinding. Allie sits on a white stool at the counter and glances around. This is exactly how she remembers it. Everything stark and white and not _cold_ , really, but not warm, either. 

“God,” she says, shaking her head, a little laugh escaping. Harry glances up at her, his arms crossed as he leans back against the counter. “The last time I was here...Remember the last time I was here?” He’s staring at her. Probably wondering why she’s bringing this up. This, being the time she was in high school and they went to his bedroom and… He nods slowly. “You’d looked so handsome in your blue shirt.”

His eyes narrow, and then she thinks he catches on to what she’s doing. Distracting him. Distracting them both. 

“Did I?” he asks, and she nods. The coffee maker stops, and he slides the white mug towards her. She wraps her fingers around it and he leans his elbows on the counter. “We matched.”

“What?”

“That blue and white sweater. That big one.” He’s right. She knows the one he’s talking about, though she doesn’t remember that she’d been wearing it. “God, when I got that off you…”

“Stop,” she says firmly, though she’s laughing. He grins at her, too. “Stay out of the gutter of memory lane, okay?”

“Is it the gutter? Or is it just the facts?” he asks, and she rolls her eyes at him. He raises his brow, though, as if to ask if he can continue. She doesn’t stop him; nods for him to do what he wants. “I’m just saying I was pleasantly surprised at what was underneath.”

It shouldn’t be this easy to laugh right now. Their world is upside down and he may have just been having a panic attack. But this feels like a welcome distraction from dealing with all that before they know what they’re really dealing with. 

“Surprised?” She sips her coffee. _God_ , it’s good. It reminds her of the coffee she had in Portugal after her junior year at Columbia, when she’d picked a random destination after a breakup and gotten a cheap flight. “Are you really trying to tell me you’d never noticed?”

He gives her a little smile, a genuine one, says, “I’d noticed,” all softly. Then he lets out his breath and says, “We need to figure out how many people are here.”

She isn’t caught off guard, really, but she is surprised. It’s maybe just more practical than she was expecting. 

“And what everyone’s good at.”

“What?” he asks, seeming legitimately confused. 

She shrugs, wants to make this as gentle as possible so it doesn’t set him off again. “In case...Like, yeah, we should try to figure out what’s going on, but in case we can’t…”

He closes his eyes, breathes out. “Are you seriously trying to say this could be long term?” he asks, and Allie shrugs, goes to speak, but he stands upright, looking irritated. “It’s been like, a few hours. How the hell are you jumping that far ahead?”

“How aren’t _you_ , Harry?” She shakes her head, takes a long drink of her coffee in case she needs to storm out or he asks her to leave. “Hope for the best, plan for the worst.”

He scoffs. “That’s not how we do it in my profession.”

“Oh, my god,” she laughs. “Any chance to remind everyone you’re a lawyer, right?”

He crosses his arms, pulls his shoulders back. She thinks he looks _good_ , but she doesn’t _like it_. So that’s a weird thing to reconcile. 

She drinks the rest of her coffee in one go, then stands. He almost looks impressed. No, he definitely looks impressed. She slides the empty mug back towards him. 

“If you’re not coming, you don’t get to have an opinion on how things are done.”

“That hardly sounds like a warm invitation,” he tells her, smirking. So that’s annoying. “You want my help?”

“If you’re actually going to _help_.” He rolls his eyes. She isn’t sure what that’s supposed to mean, shakes her head. She hates that she thought twice about what clothes to wear for _this guy_. She sighs, takes a moment to compose herself. It helps no one if they’re at each others’ throats. “Yes, I want your help.” Okay, now he just looks smug. “I’m going to try to get everyone together. On the green, maybe. Or the church. I don’t know.”

“The church,” he tells her, and she blinks. “Acoustics. Best to do it in a space everyone’ll actually be able to hear.”

That’s really smart. Thoughtful. She nods once. 

“Come home with me?” she asks, and his brow goes up. She ignores that, too. “Yes or no, Harry.”

He steps towards her, puts an arm around her shoulder, says, low into her ear, “Not an offer I’ll ever say no to, Allie.”

She laughs, because he’s being ridiculous, but the flirting feels better than anything else. 

… … …

Things go about as well as he expected they would. That is to say, most people are freaking out. There’re a few people with kids - which fucking terrifies them because it still feels like they’re all too young for it. And two people who’re pregnant, which is even more terrifying, because the stress of this is...Look, he’s not a doctor and he doesn’t know how any of this is going to go. Not that he’s convinced they’re going to be here for a while, but he’s starting to see the merits of understanding who knows how to do what. He’s not going to admit that out loud. He’s worried if he admits it, it’ll mean it’s true that this is a long term plan. That they need one of those.

A bunch of them stay back at the church, waiting and answering questions. There’s one guy with diabetes who’s kind of stressing out. Allie and Kelly - one of only two doctors (or almost doctors) among them - talk to the guy and ease his nerves. Lexie, who he barely remembers from high school, is standing there with her arms crossed like she just wants to make sure everyone knows she’s paying attention to everything. 

“What’s with Karen?” Sam asks quietly, pointing in her direction, and Harry laughs too loudly, brings his fist to his mouth. “Oh shit. I forgot your mom’s name is actually Karen.”

Harry grins, shrugs. “It’s appropriate.” 

Sam snickers and then Grizz comes over, and Will’s got a laptop open, had anyone with dietary restrictions or allergies write them down for him, just in case they need to figure out a different food situation beyond what anyone has at their own houses. Harry still thinks they’re focusing on the wrong shit, and now he knows he’s not alone in that, either. But he doesn’t have answers on any of this - most importantly, when it’ll end - so he can’t exactly do anything but go along with this shit for the time being. 

Yeah, now Lexie’s just pissing him off. He leaves the group, walks over and stands in front of her. 

“Are you waiting to talk about something specific?” he asks, instead of what he wants to ask, which is a snarky comment about her wanting to speak to a manager. It’d probably go over her head, or she’d make a stupid reply about how he’s offending her. 

“I just want to know how she’s expecting to keep everybody safe.”

Yeah, it’s like a challenge. Like some straight up - someone else is responsible for me and I’ll blame them if something happens - nonsense that Harry never has any fucking time for.

“She shouldn’t be expected to do anything past what she already said.” Yeah, sticking up for Allie is easy, because, in this situation, it’s the right thing to do. “You’ve gotta figure shit out for yourself past that. At least right now.”

“Maybe I just think if you’re calling town meetings and handing out recommendations, you’re beholden to making sure it’s best for everyone.”

Harry scoffs. That’s the dumbest shit he’s ever heard. 

“Yeah, that’s how government works,” he says, and Lexie narrows her eyes. “You getting personal calls from the President when you face a hardship? Your governor, maybe? Come on.”

“This feels a little different than that, don’t you think?”

“Mm.” Her face is set into a scowl and has been the entire like, two hours she’s been here. Maybe this is just _her face_. He’s not even being an asshole when he says he finds it unattractive. It’s just easy to not be attracted to people who are fucking miserable all the time. “Should be easier to look out for yourself, then. If it’s a microcosm of a bunch of privileged people who have some modicum of care for each other based on nostalgia alone.”

She pins him with a look, but uncrosses her arms, seems like maybe she’s about to move. “You think you’re so smart, Harry.”

It’s a statement. And a true one. So he just furrows his brow as if to ask what the rest of her point is. She rolls her eyes and walks away. God, he’ll never get sick of putting assholes like her in their place. Why d’you think he likes being a lawyer as much as he does?

Sam’s looking impressed as Harry walks back over. Allie’s taking a deep breath, walking towards the group from the opposite direction. She looks tired. He gets it. This has been...He doesn’t know. He just knows half of him wants to be at home alone, sitting miserably by himself. The other half is glad to be around people, even if some of them aren’t exactly the people he’d choose. Like Will, who’s focusing solely on food and that part of it. Which makes sense, maybe, since the guy’s apparently in culinary school. And Gordie, who’s busy having some weird awkward shit with Allie based on the fact that he dated her sister like four years ago. Cassandra’s not even here. 

(Harry, distractedly, wonders what it feels like for Allie that Cassandra’s not with them.)

Allie gives him a look across the group. He doesn’t actually know her well enough to know what it means. He’s hoping - for some reason - that it means she wants to be alone with him. But actually he thinks it means she’s surprised he stayed this late, too. Not that it’s late. It’s barely early evening. He’s starving. 

“I have a chest freezer full of frozen pizza,” he tells them, maybe cutting Kelly off as she was trying to say something. He feels sort of bad, but she just smiles like she thinks maybe he’s doing a nice thing. “If anyone wants to come by. I’m leaving.”

“You’re leaving?” Allie asks, and like. Yeah? Is there anything confusing about what he’s said? “We have a lot to do.”

“And we can do that while eating pizza,” he tells her, a little laugh unintentionally making its way past his lips. She sets her mouth in a tight line. “Do what you want. Invitation stands.” 

“He’s right,” Kelly says gently, setting her hand on Allie’s arm. He watches Allie soften. Yeah, Kelly’s really good at getting people to do that. “We should eat. Take a break.”

Allie looks like she wants to disagree, but looks right at him. “Take us to the shitty pizza, then.”

“It’s not _shitty_. Only the best frozen pizza for me.”

She laughs, falls into step next to him. He notices Kelly and Becca share a little look, but he ignores it. 

Allie ends up staying later than anyone else. Will tells her he’s going back to theirs, and Harry furrows his brow. _Theirs_? He doesn’t think they’re together. No, he thinks that experiment ran its course when they were in high school. He thinks she told him that once, maybe. 

He offers her a drink, but she gives him a pretty meaningful look and shakes her head. So he knows she’s not going to drink if he isn’t. And he isn’t. He pours them each a sparkling water, then, and leads her out to the back deck. He’s glad the pool’s open, sits at the edge with his pants rolled up and dips his feet in. Allie does the same, leans back on her hands and looks up. 

“I’m terrified,” she admits, a little too loudly, like she just needs to say it. 

“Yeah?”

She nods. The ends of her hair are touching the patio stones as he watches her. She looks good. She always looks good. 

“This is all fucked. I don’t know what to do. You know that line in Hamilton when Washington says _’Winning is easy, young man. Governing’s harder_ ’?” He laughs softly, nods. “It’s like that. I’m not even...I’ve done basically as much book learning on this topic as one can do, and I...”

“What were you gonna do with that, anyway?” he asks, and he’s not being a jerk. He really wants to know. Genuinely. They’ve never talked about it. God, he’s really making it sound like they talk often. They don’t.

She gives him a sly little look, tips her head back again. Her star necklace sits right at the base of her throat. He remembers playing with it the last time they were together. Remembers her telling him to be careful. As if he wasn’t. 

“Why do you say ‘were’ like it’s not going to happen?”

“Jesus, Allie,” he laughs, shaking his head. “You’re the one telling me to plan to be here long term. Wherever this is. Whatever this is.”

She sits up, bumps his shoulder with hers. “I’m fucking with you.” He rolls his eyes and she laughs a little. “I’m into policy.” He breathes a laugh. That sounds accurate, off the back of what he’s seen today alone. It’s also super vague, which he thinks is interesting. “I kinda wanna get in.”

He gives her a look like she’s crazy. “That water’s like, 68 degrees.”

She shrugs, moves her legs a little, splashing just the slightest bit. “Your house is warm.”

“Allie.”

But she stands, reaches for the button of her jeans, and her eyes are on his as she opens it, tugs the zipper down. He’s absolutely gonna watch if she’s gonna let him. She does, pushes her jeans down off her hips, then reaches for the bottom of her tee shirt. She’s left in matching underwear and a bra and like, he’s seen her naked, so he’s not surprised anymore at how she looks like this. Not at all. But he is appreciating it, and he thinks she likes that, too. She pulls her hair up, slips an elastic off her wrist to make a knot atop her head, and then walks around to the stairs in the shallow end. Harry watches her try not to flinch when her thighs hit the water, watches her pull her shoulders up and suck her stomach in on reflex as she gets a little deeper. 

Then she’s walking towards him, saying, “It’s not that bad,” and he just laughs, because that’s ridiculous. There’s no way she’s going to convince him of it. 

He’s rethinking taking such a hard stance, though, when she slides her hands up his calves and stands up in front of him, her chest right at his knees. Without thinking much about it, he wets his bottom lip as he watches her. Her hands feel good and she looks even better. 

Then she tugs just a little and he feels his face fall. “Don’t.” She just gives him this devilish look and moves her hands up, sets them on his thighs, gets his pants all wet. “Allie, I swear to god.”

“What?” she asks, voice all low. He tilts his head and she parts his knees, moves between them. Then she gets her hands up under his shirt and this is hot, yeah, but if she pulls him into this cold ass water… “What’ll you do about it?”

He opens and closes his mouth twice, not having an answer to that at all. She laughs, then pulls on his shirt, and yeah, she’s tugging him, her hands grasping the fabric of his shirt now, leaning back into the water. He could probably stop it if he wanted to, but he doesn’t, just slips into the water, tries not to react too much at the temperature change.

Then, when his feet are planted and she’s right in front of him, she puts her arms up around his neck, and he’s shocked, a little, from the cold of the water, his breath sucked all in. He thinks, literally, that Allie is the only woman in the world who could get him to do something like this. 

“What’re you doing?” he asks, voice a little quieter than he wanted. 

“Distract me,” she says, glances at his lips. He can’t believe she pulled him into the pool for this. She could've just asked. “Do you want to?”

He nods, but maybe takes too long to do anything, because she starts unbuttoning his shirt, which feels backwards. He just puts his hand on her face, leans in and presses his lips against hers. Kissing her always feels good. Like there’s something about it that just feels different from kissing other people. He can never put his finger on it, though. Usually gets too caught up in doing it to think too hard on it. There’s just something familiar that feels too fucking good, too _right_ , and he can’t say that out loud, obviously. Before now they’ve only kissed on three occasions. Well, four, if you count that one time…

“I’m freezing,” she laughs, pulling away, and Harry chuckles lowly, one hand tugging down the strap of her bra anyway. She doesn’t fix it. “Let’s go warm up.”

He honestly sort of wishes she’d said that before he ended up in the pool fully dressed, but whatever. He also doesn’t want to complain about how this all came about. And he might normally think that kind of thing is dorky, but the way she’s looking at him when she says it is...Yeah, he’s got a lot of thoughts about how good it sounds. How good she looks.

He also gets to watch her walk up the steps and out of the pool as he follows, unbuttoning his shirt the rest of the way. He tosses it over a chair and she watches, shivering. There aren’t any towels out here because it’s literally not even really swimming season yet. He fumbles the button of his pants as she turns a little under the light and he just...he wants to touch her instead. His pants pool at his feet and he steps out of them, leaves them there on the patio and walks towards her, sets his hand on her back. As soon as they’re inside, before he can even lock the back door and turn the outdoor lights off, Allie’s putting her hands on his hips and leaning up to kiss him again. 

Maybe he’s paranoid, but he wants to check all the doors to make sure they’re locked. He pulls back, says, “Go upstairs,” and she looks at him like she thinks that’s hot, so whatever. 

When he gets to his room, she’s under the covers of his bed, her bare shoulders showing. As he approaches, she pulls back the covers, is totally naked underneath, and he just...he needs to dry off a little more, tells her to wait, and loves the whine she lets out. 

When he finally joins her, he moves right between her legs. Mostly because he wants to be there, but also because she didn’t give him many other choices. She says something hot about how she spent the time waiting, and Harry thinks she might actually be trying to make him crazy. 

… … …

It’s dark when she wakes up, when she stares up at Harry’s ceiling as he sleeps next to her, breathing softly. She can barely make out his shape in the darkness, but god, he looks good even now. She’s never not thought he looks good. And last night… She really did just want a distraction. And Harry’s always been a good one of those, too. That makes it sound like she used him, which she didn’t. Doesn’t think she did. She gets along with him. She thinks he sort of understands her. She appreciates that he sort of helped out yesterday, just by being there. And no, they don’t know what they’re doing or what this is or how long it’ll carry on. God, maybe it’s over _now_. But sitting next to the pool with him, thinking about the situation they were in, and him talking about her future and her career and a bunch of things that wouldn’t have felt too heavy if they still felt possible, which...It just hit her at once that maybe all of it, her last like, seven years of her life, were for nothing because whatever this place is, it’s not like a PhD is going to help her, right? 

Something about being with Harry, being next to him, made her want to forget everything. This, yesterday, and everything else, too. When she said she wanted a distraction, she was telling the truth. She was about to have a full fledged existential mindfuck, and focusing on him seemed like a better idea. And all this is temporary, right? It has to be. For all her mentioning yesterday that they should plan for it to be long term, she doesn’t actually _want_ to have to figure out what this is. What this means. How to fix it. So it’s temporary. There’s no other option. And if it’s temporary, then sleeping with Harry as a distraction in literally the quietest place she’s ever been, in his yard late at night with no traffic noise and barely any wind even rustling the leaves in the trees…

All she’s saying is it doesn’t mean anything. She doesn’t think she’ll have to convince him of that, either. 

She pushes back the covers, and just on the off chance things are normal and there are other people in this house, she walks to Harry’s closet and grabs a plain white button down, pulls it over her shoulders. Then she grabs her bra and underwear from his bathroom where she left them to dry last night. She looks at herself in the mirror. Her hair’s a mess, so she pulls it back up - Harry’d taken it down last night, told her he likes to get his hands in it. Why is that so sexy? Why is _he_ so sexy? 

She leaves his room quietly, and when she’s in the hall, when she walks past his sister’s room…

Yeah, there’s no one else in this house. 

Allie wonders how this is the second walk of shame of her life, and how both of them have involved him. God, that time junior year at Columbia, when she’d met up with him randomly at that party and he’d kissed her and asked her to come home with him… She didn’t regret it - she never regrets it, not with him - but she does remember leaving his apartment just as the sun was coming up, not leaving him her number. 

Look, part of the thing with Harry is she thinks it could be something big and messy and maybe sort of serious if they let it. And she’s not sure she should let it. Because he’s _Harry_ , and she feels like she knows somehow too much and too little about him for this to be a good idea. 

But here she is, pulling him into the pool, offering herself up to him, touching herself in his bed before he joined her just so she could say that’s what she was doing. And a little because it felt fucking hot to do so. Felt _good_.

What is wrong with her? 

Where are her clothes? 

Shit. 

She slides the back door open gently, tiptoes outside with his shirt wrapped around her and held closed because she didn’t bother with the buttons. She grabs her jeans and tee shirt, walks back inside, closes and locks the door. She pulls on her own clothes and then leaves his shirt on the back of one of the chairs at his kitchen counter. She already stole one of his shirts and never gave it back. She’s not going to do it again. 

She walks into her house as quietly as she left Harry’s. Will’s sleeping in the guest room, she’s assuming, and she’s sure he knows where she was and what she was doing, which he’s probably got thoughts about. She doesn’t need him to be woken up at like 4:30am, too. They’ll talk when it’s light out. Probably. 

Just as she’s getting into her own bed, she sees a message from the unknown number she now knows is Harry. 

He just says to at least let him know she got in okay. Which...the ‘at least’ is a little passive aggressive, but she figures it’s not misplaced, exactly. She writes back that she’s home. He doesn’t respond. She doesn’t regret leaving, but also…

She sort of wonders what it might’ve been like if she’d stayed. That’s a really stupid thought. Nothing would be different except he maybe wouldn’t be this shitty about her leaving. 

She saves his number, though. 

… … …

Harry spends the next week being updated on things by Allie via text in the updates she sends around to everyone, Helena and Luke occasionally in person, and Kelly almost daily when she comes over, and he knows and can see through exactly what she’s doing. He doesn’t call her on it. 

They’re thinking this is long term, because Gordie, the _chemist_ , is trying to sort out quantum _physics_ , or something. Harry just shakes his head and thinks this is all fucking stupid. Everything. This whole place and how quickly people seem to be adapting to it like it’s _normal_. He really doesn’t want to get involved in any of this shit. He just wants to go home. Back to his life in New York and his job and not seeing any of these people unless it’s by accident or by Kelly and Becca’s sheer refusal to let him get away with not seeing them.

He sits in the back of a town meeting. Grizz makes a comment about how the first day, Harry was pretty involved and had some good ideas. Like, sure he did. When he didn’t really have to take this shit seriously, it all seemed easier. 

Allie says something about sharing resources, and he asks, loudly from the back, what resources she’s talking about. 

They haven’t spoken one on one since they spent the night in his bed. Well, most of the night. Before she left without telling him. He’s not bitter, he just thinks it’s shitty of her to think he wouldn’t have been able to handle it, or whatever. That they couldn't be adults about it. He can. He wonders why she can’t. He’s not annoyed that she _left_ , he’s bothered that she didn’t even consider talking about anything with him, or even saying goodbye. Like _obviously_ it was nothing, like obviously they’re never going to be anything. He’s not even saying he wants to be or they should be. He’s just saying it seems immature for her to slip out in the morning without saying a word. 

“Houses, for one thing, Harry,” she says, sounding a little shitty and judgmental. “It seems wasteful that some people are living alone.” He scoffs, shakes his head. That girl Elle is next to him, smiles a little like maybe she agrees with him. Or maybe she just thinks the back and forth is funny. “What?”

“What’s wrong with people staying where they are? I’m not saying everyone should like, claim a new house, or whatever, but is it so bad if people just keep what’s theirs?”

“It is if that means someone else goes without,” Allie says. “It’s wasteful.”

Yeah, she’s said that twice. Sounding like a politician repeating a party line. 

So he stands up. “Do we all agree not to take shit that isn’t ours, and not to take more than we need?” he asks. There’re some grumbles, and he looks around. Yeah, he’s actually looking for an answer. “All in agreement?”

He puts his hand up and then everyone else does. Allie’s staring at him, twisting her bottom lip like she’s genuinely pissed, but she eventually raises her hand, too. 

“Thanks, Harry,” Helena says, because yeah, she’s a lawyer, too, and he knows she’s done a ton of work in mediation. He laughs a little, sits back down. “Now that we’re all in agreement, it seems other decisions will be easier to come to.”

He’s glad she gets it, honestly. 

After the meeting, he’s waiting outside for Allie but she just brushes past him. 

“Allie, wait,” he says, and she spins around on him, levels him with a look he feels like he should take seriously, even though it’s kind of hilarious. 

No, it’s not hilarious. It just looks out of place on her. For her to look this mad. For her to direct this anger at him. 

“Don’t do that again,” she warns, and his brow furrows. 

“What?”

“We’re trying to do something, here. You can’t just stand up and...That’s not how this works. You can talk to me about things before meetings. Don’t do _that_.” He scoffs. “ _What_ , Harry?”

“You wanna say shit about talking,” he nearly whispers, and she looks up at him darkly, like she’s begging him not to start this _here_. “You could talk to me, too.”

“These are two very different things,” she says, and like, he knows. He’s not an idiot. “And if you’re trying to make me look bad because I…”

“You what?” he asks, smirking, crossing his arms. She doesn’t answer. It’s fine. “I’m not trying to make you look bad. Maybe you’re doing that all on your own.”

Yeah, she’s downright pissed now. Her hair hits his arm when she spins around all fast and starts walking away. He tries not to care. He wasn't trying to be mean. He was really just trying to suggest maybe she needs more help. Without having to say it out loud because he worries that might sound like he’s volunteering, and he’s not. 

She texts him later. Apologizes. He leaves her on read. 

He tries to remember why he was waiting for her after the meeting and he can’t. So that’s annoying. 

… … …

She slams the cupboard door shut on accident, but it feels really good, so then she sets the mug down a little harder than she needs to on the counter. Will, sitting at the table in the corner, catches her eye and raises a brow, comes over and sets his hands on the kitchen island. She ignores the way he’s watching her. 

“Seemed intense,” he says, and that makes no sense at all, so she’s not addressing it. “After the meeting. With Harry.”

She rolls her eyes dramatically, pins him with a look she hopes is as harsh as she wants it to be. “It was nothing.”

“Mhm.” 

“Are you _amused_ by this?” she asks, and he laughs, holds up his hands. She doesn’t know if that means he is or isn’t. He’s definitely not a neutral party. Shouldn’t be. He’s her best friend. 

“He made some good points.” She narrows her eyes at him, switches the kettle on. “Come on. You know it’s true. We have no reason to think we need to all bunk up like this is summer camp.” She’s not going to dignify that with a response, either. That’s a very extreme version of what she was suggesting. “People’re freaking out. I’ve talked to like, over 30 people whose partners aren’t here. Mariana’s engaged. Did you know that?”

“What does that have to do with…”

“Allie,” he cuts her off, all soft, like he wants her to stop for a minute - just a minute - and think about this differently. “Peoples’ houses are at least comforting. This is a massive change. I’m rolling with it because new homes and situations aren’t exactly out of the ordinary for me.” She sighs. He’s right about that, maybe. “He wasn’t crazy to put it the way he put it. Look how quickly he got everyone to agree with him.”

Maybe that’s what she’s most bothered by. God, she’s been having multiple conversations a day with different groups of people, trying to hear everyone out, trying to find the best solution for everyone. _Lobbying._ And then Harry just stands up and states it so plainly and everyone’s in his court like following him is the easiest thing to do. They weren’t even necessarily in disagreement, she and him. Allie just wanted to go about it differently - to communicate it differently - so that it felt more like structure, like some rules were being imposed. Harry butting in like he did dismantled all that, and Allie knows letting people think they can just get whatever they ask for if they just hijack a meeting is a recipe for literal disaster. 

“I just wanted some fucking tea.”

Will laughs, walks over and pulls her into a side hug as the water starts to bubble. 

“You know, he could be a good guy to have on your team,” Will says gently, like he isn’t sure how she’s going to react to it. She scoffs, shakes her head. God, Harry’s just...the people with the most privilege in any political scenario are always the hardest to deal with, and it seems exhausting to try and get him on her side at this point, after today. “He seems smart. People’d probably also trust him.”

“Why?” she asks, and Will laughs. She pours water into her mug, pulls away from him. “I mean why do you think they would?”

He shrugs. “Runs in his family, right? And despite everything, people usually back attractive people with money.”

Her jaw drops, but she’s mostly joking. “Are you saying I’m unattractive, or that I’m poor?”

“Neither,” he laughs. “Though it’s not like currency really matters right now.”

“Maybe I just don’t want to have to fight with him for everything all the time.” Will very much looks like there’s something he wants to say to that, but isn’t sure if he should. “What?”

“You seemed pretty keen to fight with him, Allie.”

She glares, picks up her mug. He’s laughing as she walks away, goes back upstairs to her room. 

She opens Cassandra’s door again on the way by. She’s done it...god, almost every day they’ve been here. She’s torn between being glad her sister isn’t here - doesn’t have to be part of all this, is safe somewhere - and wishing she didn't have to do this alone. Cassandra would know what to do. Cassandra is better with people than Allie is. People may _like_ Allie more, but she’s thinking of that thing Will said about trust. She thinks people would trust Cassandra implicitly. Because they knew her as type A, as student council president, as the girl who got early acceptance to Yale. 

They knew Allie as Csasandra’s sister. The one who used to follow her around. The one who hung back and never took the spotlight. God, she’d literally held Cassandra’s backpack during a speech once. People _still_ think of her that way. More than one person has said it since...all this. Walked up to her and said, “You’re Cassandra’s sister, right?” As if that’s the only notable thing about her.

She knows she has her friends, and she knows there are people she can trust who think she’s capable, but she also thinks that maybe Harry’s the only one who’s ever actually liked her better than her sister, and she’s sort of gone and ruined it. 

She shouldn’t have spoken to him like that after the meeting. He just works her up so easily. 

She pulls Cassandra’s door closed, goes into her own room and ends up very, very distracted thinking of _all_ the ways Harry’s able to work her up. She should stop, but she doesn’t. She likes it. Likes daydreaming about him. She wonders what he’d say if she messaged him right now. If she sent something hot. Even about how he’d looked earlier when she’d spoken to him that way. 

She doesn’t say anything. She just...thinks about it. A lot. Types something out and deletes it, then reaches for a book instead of her phone. That’s enough. 

… … ...

It’s Will who asks him if he wants to do inventory with him, Kelly and Becca. Harry looks at him like he’s fucking insane. Will shrugs like this wasn’t exactly his idea, either, which surprises Harry exactly not at all. Kelly and Becca - particularly Becca - have a hell of a way of bringing people together. Harry says that out loud and Will replies, “No shit,” and Harry doesn’t even know what that _means_ , but he doesn’t feel like being alone all the time anymore, so he says he’ll help, tells Will he can get his number from Allie and text him the details. 

Then Will gives him a look like he’s missed something completely and says, “No, like, _now_.”

So yeah. He’s in the canned vegetable aisle, sitting on a shitty office chair he had the brains to wheel out from the break room though no one else did. There’s a laptop on his knees and an Excel sheet open and he can hear Becca and Kelly laughing two aisles over. Will and Grizz are in the produce section - thank god, because it’s already rank - figuring out what’s salvageable and carting shit to a ‘compost’ pile, which is a designated dumpster they power washed and threw some dirt into. It’s smart. He’s not surprised Grizz has a mind for this shit. He thinks the guy was in 4H or something when they were younger. 

He’s just finishing up with the off brand green beans, which look truly vile even in the picture on the can when Allie rounds the corner, tight black jeans on and a tucked in green tee shirt with the sleeves rolled. She’s got her hands in her back pockets. 

Even when he wants to be pissed at her, he can’t help how attracted he is. She’s like, legitimately one of the hottest women he’s ever seen. He thinks, too, that part of it is that he also just likes her. But he doesn’t want to think too hard about that. 

“Heard you were putting in hours of menial labour,” she says, and he rolls his eyes, but he’s pretty sure he’s smiling, moves all the beans aside so he can get started on the next row. “Had to come and see for myself.” She walks up behind him, leans over his shoulder so she can see the screen. She smells nice. Her hair falls and brushes the back of his neck. “Impressive.”

“Mm. Good on canned corn until the fucking apocalypse.”

She sets her hand on his shoulder, squeezes a little before moving away. “Bold of you to assume this isn’t the apocalypse.”

Yeah, that makes him fucking anxious. Makes him freeze, then try to ignore her, try to go back to counting. It’s not like it’s hard. He’s almost bored out of his fucking skull. But he feels useful, too, like he’s contributing something. And honestly? Fuck, it sounds like kindergarten, or whatever, but he sort of likes that he was asked. 

“What’re you actually doing here?” he asks, needing to not think about _any_ of that shit. 

Allie grabs a can of diced tomatoes off the shelf, tosses it up once and catches it. “I wanted to see you,” she says, and then her eyes look really pretty when they land on him again, when she pushes the can back into its place on the shelf. “Make sure you’re okay.”

He smirks, goes back to counting, adds the tally to the right column. “You mean after you scolded me the other day?” He watches her roll her eyes, sigh, and lean her hand on the shelf. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“I just…” She’s too quiet. Too soft. He definitely doesn’t think he wants to hear her say this to him in a fucking supermarket, whatever it is. “You said you didn’t really know anyone else, and I…”

He tilts his head. “I don’t really know you, either, do I? Like, at all.”

She reels back a little, confused. ”What’s that supposed to mean?”

It’s supposed to mean he thought they were on the same page. That maybe the reason they keep ending up in bed together is that they genuinely _like_ one another. And the reason they have this fun, sexy, flirty banter thing they have is because they can get along well. And that maybe there was something there worth exploring. But they’ve hooked up four times, and two of them, she’s left in the middle of the night. God, he’s not trying to make it sound like been hung up on her for years, or anything, but every time this happens, every time he has a piece of her, it just makes him wonder if he should try to convince her to give him a fucking chance. 

But he says, “Nothing,” because how can he summarize that in a way that doesn’t sound absolutely insane? She says his name, though, and he lets out a huff and turns to her. He drops his voice to a low volume so there’s no chance anyone else will hear. He doesn’t think she’d like it if they did. He can’t say he’s crazy about the thought, either. “Nothing. Maybe I just don’t like waking up alone.”

She gives him the tiniest smile, like maybe she’s feeling a little too pleased with herself for getting him to admit it. “I figured,” she says gently, like she thinks he’s been pissed at her for sneaking out, or whatever. Which...maybe he is. A little. But it doesn’t feel like that’s all this is, for him. So he’s confused. “I don’t want you to feel alone. That’s what I’m saying.”

“I’m not alone,” he says, slipping back into this charm he thinks she’s actually really into. “Don’t you know Will and I are practically best friends now?”

She laughs loudly, then shakes her head at him and grins like she thinks he’s being cute. Which is exactly what he was hoping for, because it’s a good look on her. One of his favourites. 

“Is that so? I have some competition for the title?” Harry smiles at her, shrugs a shoulder playfully, and they just look at each other a moment before he watches her look downward, her hair falling a bit so she has to push it back. 

“You don’t have to worry about me,” he tells her softly, probably too softly. Because he doesn’t want her to get defensive or deny it. And that’s mostly for him. He sort of likes knowing she cares. She’s thinking about him. She’s concerned enough to check on him. He doesn’t think there’s anything so wrong with that.

She tilts her head and gives him this little look like he’s being cute or precious or missing something entirely. 

She just says, “Yes, I do,” and then he assumes she’s referring to some of the very specific issues she knows he has. Had. Has had. 

He doesn’t want to talk about that. 

(And he’s fine. Mostly because Kelly also knows and asked him on like, the third day what he’d need from her if she stepped in as some kind of sponsor, or something. He’s fine.) 

“I’m fine.”

She looks like she wants to press against that, ask more and make him pay attention to it. The thing is, he’s paying attention to it all the time. He’s never not paying attention to it. If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be an addict. And, similarly, if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be in recovery and four years sober. 

“Okay, well,” she says, then puts her hands in her back pockets. “I’m definitely not going to stop asking, so you should probably get used to it.”

Yeah, he smiles at that, too. He doesn’t hate the idea. “Alright,” he agrees, because there’s no use arguing, for one, and there’s also no use pretending he wants to. “How are _you_?”

She furrows her brow, looks like she’s about to be defensive. “What? I’m good. I’m…” She stops. He lets the silence settle in, thick and uncomfortable because she’s not good at focusing on herself, he thinks. “I’m feeling the pressure, a little bit.”

He purses his lips, nods, but doesn’t say anything about how she’s absolutely brought that upon herself by stepping into some kind of leadership position without anyone asking her to. He’s pretty sure he knows what her argument would be, and so he doesn’t need to go there. There’s no point; they can’t take it back and do it differently. It’s not like you get a do over on things when you’re stuck in an apocalyptic hellscape in small town America. 

No, he doesn’t want to _talk_ about any of that shit. 

What he does is turn in his chair, part his legs a little and lean back, all casual. “You know,” he says, and absolutely notices the way her eyes move down his body. “I could help you with some of that pressure, if you wanted.”

She lets out a little breath like she’s surprised at his boldness, or something. Which is absurd because this is literally the least surprising thing he’s done all day. Like, he’s counting inventory of shitty food with Will LeClair in a ghost town that may or may not be an alternate universe. 

Flirting with Allie Pressman and trying to convince her to take him to bed is as close to normal as he can get. 

“That’s…” She pauses, shakes her head and looks upward a bit, then away. He watches the way her jaw works as she considers what to say, knows what it’s like when he kisses her right there, when his thumb presses a little. The sound she makes. Fuck. “That can’t happen again.” 

He has a rebuttal, but should probably hear more. 

“Why’s that?”

“Look, I...I know what I said about a distraction, and maybe that sounded like a line, or something. But I just really need to focus right now, and I can’t do that if you’re…” She lets out a small laugh and gestures towards him, so. Yeah, he knows she likes what she sees. “If you’re looking at me like that, honestly.” 

He lets his grin stretch a little, happy he’s gotten at least an honest answer out of her. “Shame,” he says, then turns his chair again, tries to remember where he was with his counting. 

“Okay,” she says, like maybe she wasn’t ready to be done talking, or didn’t expect him to give up that easily. But he thinks she just likes knowing he wants her - he thinks that’s maybe sort of always been the case - and he doesn’t want to keep playing her game if there’s nothing in it for him. Is it selfish? Sure. But isn’t she being a little selfish, too? 

“I’ll see you later?” he asks, because he wants to be friendly. If they’re nothing more, they can at least be that. He’s mature enough for it and assumes she is, too. Hopes she is.

“Yeah.” She’s all distracted, then takes a step backwards, throws him a smile. “Thanks for doing this, by the way. Helping.”

He gives her a little salute, which puts a cute look on her face. He only checks her out for a second as she’s walking away. Maybe two. Three, max. 

… … …

Allie is currently reflecting on how much easier her life would be if Harry Bingham was not so fucking attractive. 

Specifically, if she was not so attracted to him. 

She’s past her anger and confusion about where they are and what it means and how they may have to figure out what to do here. No, she’s accepted all that. Reluctantly, but she’s accepted it. The thing she’s struggling with now is this weird martyr complex where she wishes the people she cared about didn’t have to go through it, too. She’s used to it - she felt this way about Cassandra when they were kids. That if she could take Cassandra’s place, that would be better. This whole world being a manifestation of that thought - that Allie’s here and Cassandra was spared - is fucking with her. She wishes Will wasn’t here. That Sam wasn’t. 

That Harry wasn’t. 

And at first, she thought that was just her being selfish. Her knowing he just distracts her and argues with her and complicates everything. And that it’d be easier if he wasn’t around. 

But the truth is, she cares about him and has since she was 17 and in his bedroom, that summer before he left for school. Him calling her hot at a party, telling her he’d always thought so but didn’t know if he was allowed to say anything. Telling her he wished they knew each other better before he had to leave. She’d been able to tell - or, god, maybe she just _wanted_ this to be true - that he meant it. There’d been something so _sweet_ on his face. And she maybe ruined it by kissing him, putting her hand up under his shirt like that, but she’d never been more sure of anything. She wanted him, and she thought she could have him. He made her feel like she was one of his regrets, that he hadn’t paid enough attention to her, that maybe he’d been feeling that way for a while. She liked that, how it made her feel special. Made her feel grown up. Like this is the kind of relationship people can have when they’re adults. Sex, and honesty, and the way he’d been so gentle with her hair when he pushed it out of her face on his bed. 

She knows everyone doesn’t remember losing their virginity in quite such vivid ways, but she does. And…

Well, fuck it. She remembers the other times just as well, too, honestly. Remembers the way it feels to be in a space with him, crowded around other people, and have him smile at her like he’s happy to see her. He’s always been so fucking happy to see her. Even in the stupid grocery store weeks ago. 

But anyway, she just thinks she’d be better at all this if she wasn’t...if she didn’t...If there were no feelings. And there are feelings. She doesn’t want to really ignore that, even if she can’t act on it. God, there’s no way she can act on it. She’s too busy to start some kind of relationship with him. This is the most important work she’s ever done in her life, and she won’t let him get in the way of that, at all. Either by distracting her with his charm and his body and the way he makes her forget everything when he’s inside her, or by getting in the way of the things she’s trying to do. 

So it’s partly that she wishes he didn’t have to be here because he shouldn’t have to be, she doesn’t want it for him. It’s mostly that. The rest is her just not trusting herself around him sometimes. Her feeling like them in the same place at the same time always seems to lead to the same thing, and this is the first time they’ve been in the same place at the same time this long since they were kids. It’s just really hard to ignore all that. 

She also can’t ignore what Will had said about Harry being a good ally. She wants to think it’s not true, that he’s a little selfish and he also oversimplifies everything and doesn’t think it through. But now she’s worried she only uses those things as a defence because she’s thinking about all that other shit. About late nights working with him, about what it means if she sees him more often than she does already. But is that fair to anyone but her? To maybe make things harder than they need to be, have fewer perspectives leading this place, just because she can’t be around him without wanting him to take her clothes off? Without feeling like there’s some kind of potential they just don’t ever actually talk about? 

What she does, stupidly, is bring it up at a meeting. An open meeting. An all town meeting, like the ones they’ve been doing weekly, or she’s been calling as needed otherwise. It’s a Monday evening, and she’d been annoyed before she even stepped into the church. The stupid ceremonial flame is still glowing on the green. It’s been a topic of conversation. She sort of wants to dismantle the fucking thing, but she hasn’t been able to think of a way to bring this up that doesn’t sound insane. 

Harry’s been migrating closer and closer to the front since that first meeting when he stood up and sort of defied her. He was in the middle last week, sitting between Elle and Sam. She’d noticed him quickly, obviously, but then he spoke up in opposition to a point she was trying to make. Because of course he did. And she wasn’t even _wrong_ , and she’s annoyed at how easily he disagrees with her, gets in the way and slows things down. Even if, rationally, she knows it’s good that people aren’t afraid to speak up, that he sets that example. She just wishes he wouldn’t do it this way. It feels almost personal.

This week, he’s in the second pew, Becca on one side of him and Bean on the other. Allie’s distracted before they even start, because she wonders how he’s building these relationships when she’s not looking. And she’s not always looking. She’s _busy_ , and she checks in with him, and they do their stupid banter and he always looks at her like he’d be willing to take her to his bed any second if she just asked. But…

What was she saying? Right. She doesn’t think he’s alone anymore, and she likes that. It’s a relief. It makes her feel better. 

“We need a little more structure in leadership,” she says as planned, and Helena, who’s sitting at the table at the front with her, nods along. They've been talking about this all week, and reviewed their talking points just hours ago. “Helena and I have gotten us to this point, but things being what they are, we need to make sure we’re thinking clearly and doing what’s best for everyone.”

“Like a real government,” Helena adds, gently. Right. Allie’d forgotten that part. 

Harry, who’s had his head down until this point, looks up. Looks right at Allie. 

“I think…” She looks away. Can’t look right at him. “We need actual leadership, a final decision maker. And I’d put up my hand for that.” There’re some murmurs in the crowd, and she can’t make out what anyone’s saying. She knew this would happen - that people would question it. And they should. “But we can vote.”

It’s Becca who says, “All in favour of Allie leading?” and puts her hand up. This was definitely not part of the plan, so Allie’s stomach drops. The vast majority of people raise their hands. There’re just a few who don’t. 

Harry’s looking at her when she glances at him. She sort of knew he would be. She hates that she cares so goddamn much about what he thinks. 

His hand isn’t up. He raises it slowly, two fingers raised, all lazy like he’s got a lot of questions and opinions. 

And if he has questions and opinions, he’s welcome to voice them. He’s done it before, right?

“I’m open to a co-leader,” she says, and feels Helena’s eyes on her. Will’s, too. “To keep things in check.”

Harry scoffs. “Like a two party system with equal power?” he asks, and she won’t say she’s _impressed_ , but it’s a good question. It’s...she should be able to answer that. She’d be better prepared if she hadn’t lit the fucking script on fire, here. 

“Not so much interested in parties, but equal power, yes.” He rolls his eyes, so she crosses her arms. “I nominate you.”

He’s surprised. She is, too. The look on his face is pure shock, and the crowd starts talking. Becca looks downright _gleeful_ , shoves his shoulder as he just looks at Allie. He tilts his head after a few moments, his lips still parted, like he’s trying to understand what the fuck she’s doing. 

She’d like to understand that, too. 

“I second,” Will says, which is...well, everything about this so far has been surprising, so that trend might as well continue. 

“I need…” Harry sputters, shakes his head and glances around. “This is fucking insane. You can’t just put me on the spot like this.”

Okay, so that’s a fair point. 

Helena touches Allie’s arm, gives her a heavy look like she also wants to know what the fuck Allie is playing at. 

“Think about it,” Helena says, quieting the crowd in that way she has. “If you decide you’re interested, we’ll take a vote. If not, we’ll find another candidate.”

“I’m not a candidate,” he scoffs, shaking his head. He sits back in the pew, defiant. Allie thinks it’s hot. 

God, this is the stupidest fucking idea she’s ever had. She’s really backed herself into a corner, here, hasn’t she? 

“We’ll have five council positions, and two leaders, so there will be no chance for stalemates on decisions,” Helena continues. “Council positions will be voted on, and anyone can run. If there are any write in candidates, we’ll discuss with the candidate and see if they accept. If you want to run, see us after the meeting, or any time until 6pm tomorrow.”

Harry stares at Allie most of the rest of the meeting. Like he wants to talk. Like maybe he’s got things to say that he doesn’t want to say in front of everyone. Which makes sense.

But he also doesn’t stay after. He’s, in fact, one of the first to leave; gets up and weaves through the crowd to get to the door like he can’t get out of here fast enough. 

Maybe she’s made a huge mistake. This feeling is one she’s getting much too used to. 

She talks to a few people, and the sun is bright in the sky when she steps outside. The stupid flame is fucking mocking her, even in the middle of the hottest day of the year so far. 

She pulls her phone from her pocket when she sees he’s not milling around outside, either, texts him, _’Can we talk?’_ and doesn’t wait for a response before putting her phone back in her pocket. No, she doesn’t wait because she can’t fathom staring at her screen all anxious. 

He replies, though, her phone vibrating, and says, _’Surprised you’re asking permission.’_

Classic. 

She assumes it’s a yes, starts walking towards his house. God, she misses driving. They’d all collectively decided it was best to save the fuel. If she’s feeling this way about like, her parents’ Hyundai, she can’t imagine what someone like Harry, with his fleet of luxury vehicles, is feeling. 

He’s on the front step when she arrives, cup of coffee in his hand, feet bare on the pavement. He could literally try to stop looking so fucking good. 

(Who’s she kidding? That’s not a thing he’s ever going to try. No, she thinks he likes how genetically gifted he is. Knows exactly what it means, what it gets him, how people see him and think about him. How _she_ thinks about him.)

Instead of saying hi, he says, “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Which, while the words are mean, he says with a little bit of a grin, like he’s maybe intrigued enough to want to know what’s going through her head.

Honestly, that makes two of them.

“A lot.” He rolls his eyes like that’s ridiculous, which is oddly flattering, though it really shouldn't be. He stands, turns to head into the house. She follows him. “I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you. I just...went off script. I think Helena’s pissed at me, too.”

“I’m not pissed at you,” he tells her, then holds up a coffee cup like an offer, and god, she’s remembering that cup she had when they first got here, and nods. She became a coffee drinker during her undergrad and is embarrassed to say she’s a bit of a snob. “I just don’t understand why you’d think I’d be interested or good at this.”

She grins a little, steps closer so the island isn’t between them. She leans her hip on it, anchors herself there so they don’t get too close. His kitchen is so big there’s easily eight feet of space between them. It’s good. She needs it. 

“Don’t even try that,” she says, and he looks confused. She rolls her eyes. “You’re brilliant, and usually very quick to tell people.”

He breathes out a laugh, switches the coffee maker on. “Only really quick to tell you,” he says, and she doesn’t know how to respond to that, really. “You like smart guys, right?”

“Stop,” she laughs, and means it. He chuckles a little, then comes closer to hand her the coffee. It smells so amazing, and despite how hot it is outside she is going to enjoy this so much, holds it up just under her nose and Harry watches. “We disagree on some stuff.” He nods. She wonders if he’s scared to say it out loud. “We can keep each other in check. Try to represent as many different perspectives as possible.” 

“Yeah, but…” He pushes a hand through his hair, then sort of...fluffs the curls at the front, or something. It should look silly, but it’s really just almost adorable. She does not react. “I don’t want to.”

“Why?” she asks, brow furrowed. She sips her coffee. It’s as good as she was hoping. Harry’s hand is leaning on the counter next to them. He hasn’t backed away. If she reached out, she could touch him. 

“Not everyone dreams of political power, Allie.”

She laughs incredulously, narrows her eyes at him. “You think I _want_ this?” she asks, and he must be able to tell from her tone of voice that she’s a little pissed at the insinuation. “I wanna be _home_ , Harry. I wanna see my sister. And the only way we have a chance at that, even a long shot, is if we don’t fucking kill each other.”

He rolls his eyes like she’s just being dramatic. “No one’s killing anyone.” 

She sets down her coffee, crosses her arms, levels him with a look he can’t seem to break. “Is that a guarantee?” she asks, and he reels back a little, like he wants to know what she knows. 

“What the fuck?” he asks, mad. “Is this supposed to, what, scare me into agreeing?” 

She takes a breath, closes her eyes a moment. This isn't getting them anywhere. “No,” she says softly, genuinely. “No, I just...I’m really trying to create some structure. I think we’d be a good team.”

She’s laying it on a little thick, the way he purses his lips lets her know he thinks so, too. 

“I’d think teams would have to talk to each other more.” He sounds a little too gentle for her to think this is just about her public stunt earlier. She just watches him, hoping he has more to say. She drinks more coffee, just to busy her hands and keep her from talking. (And if he’s still referring to her leaving his bed without saying goodbye, he’s just gonna have to get over that at some point.) “I don’t like surprises. They fuck with my anxiety.”

Oh, shit. God. She didn’t…

“I’m sorry,” she says sincerely. She doesn’t know anything about his anxiety; they’ve never had deep conversations about each others’ mental health. Not really. Some, but… “That’s...I shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s okay,” he says, reaches for his mug, finishes his coffee. “Anyway, thanks but no thanks.”

Is he _serious_? She literally almost stomps her foot on the ground. 

“Harry.”

“Are you _whining_?” he asks, amused. She sighs, presses her lips together and looks up at the ceiling, then she knows she’s smiling when she looks back at him. He smiles back, like he likes the look of her, like he knows she’s about to say something he’s going to like. “I’m not the person for this.”

See, the thing is, she just doesn’t fucking believe that. Maybe she was insane to bring it up the way she did, but she actually thinks there’s no one else better suited to keep her in check. And now she’s getting annoyed that he doesn’t see it, too. 

“Just think of what it’d be like if we actually worked together,” she says, and then something a little _amused_ crosses his face, and she wants to sigh her frustration, but doesn’t want to foster anymore animosity. 

Harry just tugs one corner of his mouth up, tilts his head and looks her up and down. Allie’s pissed at herself for the way her cheeks flush at just that. 

Then he says, “I remember,” and she clenches her teeth and pulls her posture more upright. He looks like he wants to laugh. 

“If you’re not going to help me, at least stop getting in my way.” 

“Why?” he laughs, then takes a step towards her. She wishes she wasn’t leaning against his counter. She thinks of moving, but he stops. “To make it easy on you to do whatever you want? I’ve read up on dictatorships, too.”

She narrows her eyes, smiles sweetly. He _likes_ this, the back and forth between them, the bickering. 

But she’s still here, right? So maybe she likes it, too. 

“Well, Harry,” she says, and then steps forward. He momentarily looks shocked or scared or at very least surprised. She likes that she can catch him off guard. She gets right into his space, puts her hand on his chest. He looks at her mouth. Predictable. “Maybe if you’d just give in and agree to do things together, we could both get our way.”

He narrows his eyes. His hand comes up to rest on her hip. It’s hot through the fabric of her shirt. She remembers what it was like when he pressed his hands against her in the same spot when she was undressed. 

“Are you bribing me?” he asks, but he’s joking. She thinks.

“I’m absolutely not bribing you,” she confirms. He looks down. Probably down her shirt, honestly. She doesn’t care. “I’m saying we could meet in the middle.”

He pulls her closer. She should’ve expected it. She’s all pressed up against him, his hips to hers, his mouth hovering just above her lips. 

“Sounds fun.” She hums, which she wishes she could take back. She’s really not playing it very cool right now. She wanted to leave here with either his agreement or the upper hand. She doesn’t have either yet. “Could be, anyway,” he says, then reaches up and pushes her hair over her shoulder. He’s watching his hand, and he has this little smile on. She’s seen it before. Usually when they were this close. “Both of us getting what we want.” 

Yeah, he’s definitely talking about sex. Specifically, orgasms. And she sees an opening to put space between them and also put him in his place, so she takes it. 

She pushes gently at his chest, which makes him laugh like he thinks he’s just getting to her and she’s the one backing down. 

But then she says, “That’d be a nice change from you getting something and me leaving unsatisfied.” The look on his face is positively offended, and Allie glances at her coffee cup on the counter, wants to finish it but won’t. As she retreats, she throws back at him, “Think about it, Harry. If I can’t get your support, I’ll have to work with someone else.” 

Yes, she thinks she knows exactly what she implied there. Oops?

… … …

He’s losing sleep over her, and not the way he wants to. 

Maybe it’s fucking predictable, but he’s not even up late thinking about her and him and how the hell they’d manage working together to run things. No, he’s thinking about her and him and her parting words about being unsatisfied. Because...Because he thinks she’s lying. He’s pretty sure she’s lying. But what if she’s not?

No, she’s got to be lying. He knows - he fucking knows - that his first time with her was...Well, it was his first time with anyone. Not that anyone would’ve thought that or probably knows. He’s pretty sure she still doesn’t, never has, actually. Looking back on it - not that this is the first time he’s thought about it, either - it wasn’t exactly the mutually enjoyable experience it could’ve been. He was a selfish teenager thinking exclusively about himself in that moment. And, embarrassingly, he’s also sure it was barely longer than a moment. 

But since then? That time in college when she came twice before he was even inside her, when her thigh flexed against him later as he moved. He’s never forgotten that. Then a few years ago when she’d been all quiet, gentle with him. That was the night he told her about his sobriety. When they’d bumped into one another and ended up grabbing a bite and then kissing on the sidewalk near his place. The night she pressed her hands against his chest, her knees astride him, and pulled her dress off over her head right there on his sofa. 

He remembers all this. It’s not like he’s got a catalogue of every time he’s ever had sex with anyone. But he remembers every time he’s been with Allie. Because it’s different with her. Because he likes her. Because there’s some kind of fondness for her that he’s never actually been able to articulate. But maybe it’s just as simple as that. He just _likes_ her. 

And just weeks ago, here, with the pool and then in his bed…

She’s either the best in the world at faking her orgasm, or she was saying that just to piss him off. He doesn’t appreciate either. And even though he’s almost positive it’s the latter, he harbours just enough self doubt to be making himself fucking crazy wanting for an answer. 

It’s after midnight when he texts her, _’Did you actually mean that? About being unsatisfied?’_

And he shouldn’t have fucking sent that. Shit. 

He doesn’t expect a reply at all, let alone tonight. But Allie surprises him over and over again. 

“What do you think?” she asks when he answers. Yeah, a call? Definitely not what he had in mind, but he finds he likes it. Realizes they’ve only spoken on the phone once before in the entire time they’ve known one another.

“I think it’s bullshit, but I need to know.”

“Why do you think it’s bullshit?” she asks, and it’s fucking dangerous because her voice is all low, and he’s never seen her bedroom but he can picture her in bed. “Why do you need to know?”

“Because I know what we’re like together,” he says, and the present tense just slips out, but he’s not gonna correct it, either. Like, they’ve slept together recently enough that it’s suitable. “And I don’t think you’ve left without coming.”

Yeah, he’s gonna be direct. It’s late and dark and they’re talking about sex and she called him and she must have expected it. She’ll tell him if it bothers her and he’ll stop. But. 

“And why would it bother you if it was true?”

Jesus Christ, does she want him to solve a goddamn riddle before being honest with him?

(Or does she want him to elaborate on all the shit he feels, has felt, wants her to feel…?) 

“I’m good in bed,” he tells her, confident, quiet, the way he knows she likes his voice. She always reacts to it, anyway. “That’s just. A fact that I know about myself. And if you’re saying…”

“I’m not,” she interrupts carefully. She sounds a little breathless. Enough that it makes him almost wonder what she was doing when she called. Because again: late, dark, and he texted her specifically about sex. What was she doing that made her _call_ him, if she knew this was going to be their topic of conversation? (Or is he just...overthinking it.) “I was being a brat.”

Honestly, he’s so fucking relieved to have this confirmation. It’s stupid that he cares so much. But he does. And there are lots of reasons for that and he won’t get into them all, not...Like, yeah, she has a lot to do with them. He wants _her_ , specifically, to feel like he’s good in bed. He doesn’t want to have to tell her that himself. 

“Good,” he says, which doesn’t really make sense, but he hears the little breath she sucks in, and likes that. “Almost had me inviting you over to prove it, or something.”

“Harry,” she breathes out, then laughs softly. “I would’ve said no.”

He smiles, tugs his sheet up over himself, thinking he may finally be able to turn his brain off and get some sleep now that he’s got an answer. 

“Yeah. But you would’ve thought about it. Me.”

“What makes you so sure?”

He’s legitimately wondering if she’d be down for phone sex. Because she sounds like it right now. That she’d go for it. That maybe they could make some distinction between actually hooking up and doing this, whatever this is. 

“I think you think about me anyway,” he tells her. She’s silent. So that’s a yes. Or close enough to one that he can tell himself it’s true. “I think you know we’re hot together.”

He hears her moving in her bed. Fuck. He’d love for her to be between his sheets right now. Press her into the mattress and make her admit that she likes fucking him. She wouldn’t keep doing it if she didn’t. Even if it happens literally years apart, she keeps coming back. They keep finding each other for more.

“Goodnight, Harry.”

“Just admit it,” he says too softly, a little like begging. 

“Have you been focusing on this, or have you considered leading with me at all?”

“I can’t help it,” he says, and she laughs a little. “You went personal. I couldn’t focus.”

She pauses. He wonders what she’s doing _really_. What she’s wearing. What she looks like in her own bed. 

“Well, now it’s all cleared up. I want an answer tomorrow.”

He liked it better when they were being a little sexy. 

(He thinks her being all direct like this is a little sexy, too.) 

He says, “Sleep well, Allie,” and he doesn’t think he’s meant to hear the little sound she lets out right before the line goes dead. 

He tries to close his eyes after that. He really tries to go to sleep, thinking he should be able to. But her parting words, apparently, have a habit of throwing him all deep into his own head. Because now that he’s satisfied with her answer about her enjoyment of their times together in his bed (and he’s spent too much time wondering why it’s always been _his_ bed), he’s actually doing what she really wanted and thinking about leading this place. Co-leading this place. With her. And he’s torn between thinking it’d be a fucking disaster and they’d hate and hurt each other in the process, or thinking she’s absolutely right and he’s kind of the best person for the job. 

Look, she’s right. He’s brilliant. That’s not even just him letting his ego do the talking. He was tested in sixth grade, and then again in 12th. He’s classified as a literal genius, and his mom wanted him to join Mensa because of the status of it, or whatever, but like. Pass. He doesn’t need that. He’s a fucking lawyer at one of the best, most renowned firms in the world. A place that notoriously only hires from one law school and made an exception for him because he’s fucking good at what he does. And despite what the rumours among his colleagues say, he got the position on his own merit. His connections and his family had nothing to do with it. In fact, they’d wanted him to take a position at this firm in DC where it’d get them some political access. It’d been a whole thing with his mom and his grandparents. Both sets. 

He’s never really been interested in politics. Like, he follows things and he votes and he knows enough to be informed and not be part of a group of people who makes the country or state or city go to shit. And a lot of his politic is rooted in the idea that people shouldn’t have to suffer through life, which is hard to balance against like, being wealthy and wanting to stay wealthy. He probably doesn’t do enough to actually help people. He knows voting for a party that’s not punishing poor people or immigrants or whatever isn’t enough, but he’s never done anything more for them, which he realizes is pretty empty and very fucked up. 

But maybe this is...Fuck. He’s thinking about what he said to Lexie way back at the beginning. About this being a microcosm or whatever. About things being easier. And he can definitely wrap his head around processes here, and has a lot of ideas on what they should do. He thinks Allie wouldn’t like some of them, but that’s what she’s asking for, isn’t it? She said she wants his perspective. He thinks he knows her well enough to know she means that. It may be hard, and she may get mad at him - and he’s sure he’ll get mad at her, too - but she’s being genuine. She must be. 

She said it in front of everyone, put him on the spot like that because maybe she really just thought he’d say yes. That he’d accept. That he wants to work with her. That alone sort of makes him want to.

Another thing he knows about himself is that he needs to be good at something. For people to know it. Like, he just obsessed about this other thing for way too long because he doesn’t like people thinking he’s not capable. He doesn’t want to say yes to this because he’s worried about what it’ll look like if he doesn’t. But he is thinking it’ll help him here - help him feel _better_ than he has - if he’s doing something other people see and appreciate and respect him for. 

He turns his alarm off, because he knows he’s literally lost half a night’s sleep and will need some back. It’s 10am by the time he gets into the shower, and 11am when he shows up at Allie’s, walks in when Will invites him to. Allie’s sitting in a chair in the living room, Grizz and Sam playing some video game. Becca’s there, too. Harry’s never really given much thought to what Allie does or who she hangs out with when she’s not taking charge of shit.

“Hey, Allie,” he says, suddenly nervous, hand in a loose fist by his side. She doesn’t look at him, just sort of slides her eyes a little. “Can we talk? Not here.” He glances around. Becca and Will are both paying attention. “Just us.”

She finally turns her head, looks up at him through her lashes like she thinks he’s trying to do what he was trying to do last night. Like, fuck. The last conversation they had, they were just making each other all hot and she can deny that if she wants to, but he’s pretty sure it’s a fact. Maybe she doesn’t want to be alone with him, but he doesn’t think everyone else needs to see him this vulnerable, either. 

She gets up, walks past him, her hand brushing his a little as she does. Probably an accident. He doesn’t think she’d do that on purpose. Not in front of everyone and not after last night. She leads him to this little sun room at the back of her house. He’s never even been here before at all. This room that’s all wood planks and plants and white furniture and all sun filled is actually really…

“This is nice,” he says, looking around. She lets out a small laugh. 

“Yeah, when my parents put the extension on… I think I was 9? Cassandra and I used to sleep in here sometimes. Pretend we were camping.”

That makes him smile, for some reason. It’s nice, learning this thing about her. He likes having little facts about her like this. He knows she’s got some about him, too. 

He runs his fingers over the leaf of some big potted plant that comes up past his waist, feels her watching him. He definitely doesn’t regret talking to her last night, but he is wondering if it’s making shit a little awkward. 

“I’ll do it,” he finally says, figuring he should just get right to the point. When he looks at her, at first she looks surprised, almost. Then he can tell she’s trying not to smile. There’s no way she should look this cute in an oversized sweater and leggings, but he notices it. “Working together or whatever. I’m game.”

She pauses a moment, and he notices her hands are tucked up into her sleeves. He doesn’t know how she’s wearing a sweater, even. It’s the end of June. Is she not roasting? 

“Are you just agreeing because of yesterday?” His brow furrows. This wasn’t even a thing until yesterday. Then she looks up at him through her lashes again. “And last night?”

He breathes a laugh, tilts his head a little, leans in a little even though there’s only a few feet between them and no one else is around. “You think I’m that shallow?”

“No, I…”

“If I was just trying to sleep with you, this isn't how I’d go about it.”

She freezes, her mouth opening, almost forming an ‘h’, and he wonders if she’s about to ask how he _would_. But she stops herself. He’s not surprised. 

“And you know it’s going to be hard,” she says, states it like a fact. And he knows it is one, so he nods, slips his hand into his pocket. Then he sits down on one of those white chairs just because it looks comfortable. She smiles a little again. “And we can’t...You and I…”

He smirks a little. She’s really in her feelings about this. About them. Talking like they did, and the way they touched in his kitchen. Then their conversation last night. Harry crosses his legs, rests his ankle on his knee and sits back. She sits on the table, close to him, instead of on one of the other chairs. Interesting. 

“You and I?” he asks, and she grins and rolls her eyes, all playful. “Is there a you and I?”

“There is,” she says, and he nods, knowing what she’s getting at. “Now there is. And people will see us as a team, and we need to...To be professional.” He scoffs a little. Professionalism is a weird concept for this place, if he’s being honest. “Respect each other. Like...Last night can’t happen again.”

His brow ticks up. He watches her cheeks colour. He knows she’s right about all this shit, but it’s gonna be difficult for him. For both of them, he thinks. 

He moves, sets his foot on the floor and rests his elbows on his knees, leans in closer to her. She doesn’t move away. 

“What happened last night?”

She breathes out a laugh, air warm on his face, and then shoves his shoulder back, which makes him laugh. She says, “Nothing,” but her eyes are locked with his so he definitely thinks that’s a lie and he wants to know more. But he can’t ask. 

“Believe it or not, I can control myself,” he tells her quietly. And she takes a breath, nods. “I’ll take it seriously. No fucking around.”

She smiles all wide, looks genuinely _happy_ , and nods once, which is cute. 

“We should tell everyone,” she says, and then goes to stand, and he reaches for her wrist gently to stop her, and she just looks down at him like this is the opposite of what he’s agreed to. As if him touching her at all means he’s hitting on her. He lets go. 

“Can we have a minute?” he asks, and she’s confused. “This is...It’s gonna be a lot, right? When we get started? Bring me up to speed before we tell people. Then I won’t look like I’m flying blind when people are talking to me about shit.”

She looks way, way too happy about this. Impressed, maybe. Definitely pleased. 

“Let me get my stuff from my room.” 

Yeah, he wants to see the rest of her place, but not if she’s not going to offer. 

And also. 

“You shouldn't work where you sleep.” 

“What?” she asks, laughing. 

He shrugs. “Shouldn’t we get fancy corner offices, or something? Like, at least we should get some kind of perk.” 

She shakes her head like he’s being a rich asshole. Which he kind of is. “Not every house has a home office.” 

He tilts his head a little. “You can have one of mine. We can use my mom’s office. It’s massive.”

She raises her brow. “You want to _share_?” she asks, absolutely alluding to the fact that he wasn’t keen to share much when they first arrived. 

He still isn’t, really. But Allie’s different. He’ll share with her. Doesn’t mind. Wouldn't have minded at the start, either

“Up to you. That’s where I’ll be.” 

She smiles, tilts her chin up towards him when he stands. “You just assume I wanna be where you are.” 

Okay, yeah. For all her shit about making sure he doesn’t blur the lines, she’s definitely dragging her toes over ‘em to see what’ll happen. 

“Won’t that make it easier for us to collaborate, or whatever?” he asks, and steps back away from her. As much as he’d like to play this game, he really does want to respect what she said earlier. And he agrees. Mostly. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to sleep with her. He’s just not going to act on that. 

“Let me get my things,” she says again, and he nods, follows her out of the sunroom, watches her head for the stairs and goes to the living room. 

Becca and Will glance his way again. Will smiles at him like he knows something without Harry having to tell them anything. He figures they’ll find out soon enough. He figures, actually, that Allie will tell them later. 

He isn’t sure he’s going to like the attention at first. He isn’t sure he wants Allie talking about him when he’s not around. Not because he thinks she’ll say anything bad, or whatever. Just...He can talk, too. And he thinks he likes the idea of controlling this bit of it, too. 

“I agreed,” he says, and Grizz pauses the game, turns, touches Sam’s arm gently so Sam turns too. “To co-lead, or whatever we’re calling it.”

“That’s good,” Grizz says carefully, smiling a little. Harry nods, slips his hands into his pockets. “Happy to hear it, man.”

Sam says and signs, “Congratulations,” which Harry is just...is this a thing he should be congratulated for, really? He doesn’t actually know. 

Becca’s texting Kelly. Harry wants to roll his eyes. But then Allie comes downstairs. She’s changed into a pair of green pants and a white tee shirt, plain white sneakers on her feet. She looks good, even with a literal Jansport backpack over her shoulder like this is high school, or something. 

“Ready?” she asks, and he’s just been waiting for her, so he nods, waves to everyone gently, and they walk outside. 

He says, “You’ve got really good style,” as they’re passing the house next to hers. She laughs a little, looks at him like she wants to know what he’s talking about and where that’s coming from. “I'm just saying. You used to wear such different stuff. I like this.”

“You should see my full wardrobe in New York,” she says, laughs a little. 

“Love to,” he says too softly, and she shoves him hard enough that he staggers a little as he laughs. 

“Stop hitting on me.”

“I’m not!” 

“Mhm.”

Harry takes in her profile, and then she turns her face and the sun hits her cheek just so, and he looks away before he actually starts doing what she’s accusing him of. 

This should be interesting.

… … …

Most days, Allie’s genuinely torn between kissing him and telling him to go fuck himself. 

They do share the office at his house, spend hours every day - except Saturdays and Sundays unless they have to - sitting at separate desks, mostly, but occasionally the same one. Harry drinks more coffee than she does. Actually, after four days of working together she started making him pace with water, literally afraid for his stomach lining and also his kidneys. Others have taken over inventorying all the rest of the stores, and Harry’d stopped working the other day, looked up from the book he’d been reading through for context on food storage ideas to get them through the winter. He’d said, “When we run out of coffee, just shoot me.”

She thinks, honestly, that he’s pacing himself more because of that than because it’s actually good for his body. 

He also keeps commenting on her clothing. And she knows she’s got good style and she’s not bothered that he knows this. It’s flattering, really. But it also means she sometimes spends too long thinking about what to wear. The morning she wakes up sweating because it was cool in the night but roasting in the morning and she and Will hadn’t wanted to run the AC unnecessarily, she saw her bikini from high school in her drawer. Unsure if it would even fit, she seriously considered wearing it under her clothes and telling Harry she was taking advantage of his pool. She knows he’s been taking care of it, but she doesn’t think anyone else has swam. She wonders...god, he must do it at night. He has to say her name three times to get her attention when she’s thinking about that visual. 

He’s also just ornery. 

He disagrees for the sake of disagreeing, to make sure she sees all sides and can articulate her arguments. And they’ve both got practice with this, she knows, but he literally gets paid a ridiculous amount (he told her his salary, and she’d been shocked) to do this very thing.

“You argue like everyone else is wrong. I argue like I want everyone to know I’m right,” she says, and it feels like a poignant difference. Harry chuckles, sits back in his chair, and honest to god, puts his pen behind his ear. 

Nothing is easy. That isn’t all his fault. Sometimes she wishes she could say it was, just to have someone to blame. They’re just...they’re trying to plant enough food, even this late in the season, that they’ll have enough fresh things to get them through the winter. Grizz is managing most of that, tilling up yards and parks and the pee wee football field to plant rows of corn and wheat and squash and potatoes. It’s smart. It is. It’s just stressful. She thinks she had a tear in her eye the first time she checked on the tomato patch behind the church and saw a little green sprout coming out of the dirt. 

And people don’t want to work. She doesn’t blame them. It’d be easy to treat this like some kind of vacation. And these aren’t the jobs they’re used to, for the most part. There are economists, and accountants, and truck drivers. Someone manages a hotel in Utah. There’s a wedding planner and software engineers and… None of them have ever done shit like this. Had to do a shift as sanitation workers, or dish out food in the caf, or farm. They’re pissed about it, and she gets it. They’re pissed at her for rationing things - a decision that was made pre-Harry. So was the work schedule. 

She thinks they all sort of thought he might come in and dismantle everything, but he hasn’t. He makes suggestions for the schedule to give people a little more time off, to shorten the shifts and make things more efficient. It makes sense and Allie’s just not had the brainspace to tweak anything, honestly. She appreciates having someone to help with this. He’s honestly better at it than she even thought he’d be. More reasonable. She thinks he’s tempering his opinions for the situation. That if things were different, he’d be different, too. More extreme. 

She and Harry basically propose things to the council for discussion and approval. Sometimes it goes the other way and they bring things to her and Harry. But usually it’s the other way. Which means they have to do all the research and the thinking and proposals and case studies. They have to be articulate and clever and gentle and a bunch of other soft skills she’s honestly a little surprised he can do so well, that he can pick up so quickly. 

She’s learning a lot about him. She likes most of it. It’s terribly inconvenient. 

… … …

Honestly, he knows he’s hard to work with. It’s a thing he’s heard before. He often just reacts, says the first thing that comes to mind, or takes a position he actually doesn’t hold just to try and poke holes in things. That last part’s his training. Part of what makes him a good lawyer. It’s valuable. Allie just hates it. She wants things to go smoothly. To not run into block after block. Which he gets, but is sort of idealistic and not actually how real life works. And he tries not to be smug when people actually bring up the same points he has at meetings or checkins. Because he knows he’s right, most of the time, to push back. He doesn’t have to just do what she says. 

“I’d like it if you did,” she says, laughing, and blows steam off her coffee while they take a break on his front porch, get some air. 

“I wouldn’t hate it, depending on context.”

Yeah, he shouldn’t have said that, probably. Allie just rolls her eyes, sits down on the step and looks up at him like she wants him to join her, so she does. 

“You’re bad,” she tells him, but she doesn’t mean it and they’re just being dumb, so he just laughs. “Honestly, it’s hard to imagine you’re not just like this with everyone.”

He could be insulted by that, but he’s not. He gets what she’s saying. He’s a flirt and that’s a thing he knows about himself. But it’s different with her. It is. The rest of it is just charm, like, smiling at women on the street, or holding doors open for old ladies, or whatever. With Allie, there’s something different underneath, this unspoken thing he definitely knows they’re not actually going to talk about now, either. 

“I’m not.” She takes a sip. He sort of loves that she loves coffee as much as he does, even if she’s trying - and succeeding - to get him to cut back. “Just with really hot women. And like, the elderly.”

“Shut up,” she laughs, then stretches her legs out in front of her. She’s wearing those loose jeans, the ones she rolls up and usually wears with some slouchy top. Today, though, it’s a tight black tank top, which is way sexier than it should be. She tips her face back to the sun. “Nice to know I share company with supermodels and grandmothers.”

He bumps her shoulder with his. He should definitely stop trying to find ways to touch her, but she hasn’t asked him to, and he thinks she likes the contact as well. 

“Nah. You’re in a league of your own, Allie Pressman.”

Yeah, he said that in a way that did not at all sound like a joke. She looks over at him, her eyes sort of ice blue in the sunlight, and if she hadn’t made it clear that it’s a no go zone, he’d absolutely lean over and kiss her right now. Feels like a good moment to do so. 

Then after a few seconds she sort of smiles, just barely, and then says, “You actually believe that, don’t you?” all soft, like his answer is really important.

He shrugs gently, smiles back. Says, “Yeah,” because it’s true. He does. 

She takes a breath, keeps looking at him, almost, _almost_ leans towards him, and then shakes her head, gets up quickly and turns to go back into the house. It’s so abrupt and gives so much away, that it actually makes him laugh. 

“Where’d you go?” he asks, laughing, as she’s walking through the door. 

She shouts back, “Not doing this with you, Harry!” and he thinks that’s fucking hilarious, too. 

He gives her a minute alone so she can recover, which is absolutely what she’s asking for, and then he heads back inside, finds her in the office burying herself in the work again. He doesn’t mention anything more, and she seems to appreciate that, and they sort of press on. Not acting like it never happened, per se, but just...moving on, with this new thing between them, where he’s been genuine and she’s reacted in a way that lets them both know she liked it. 

… … ...

He points out a typo when he’s looking over her shoulder as she’s working on something, not that she _asked_ him to look, and she can’t tell if he’s joking or not. It makes her so mad she pushes her chair back, ignores his little noise of pain when it bumps into him, and doesn’t care that her shoulder brushes his as she passes and leaves the office. 

She walks straight through the house and out to the back, onto the deck overlooking the pool. She sucks in a big, deep breath, closes her eyes, and tries to ground herself with the fresh air and the sounds of the birds and the railing in front of her pressing into her hips when she leans on it. 

He must know better than to follow her right away, because she thinks she spends five minutes alone before she hears footsteps behind her and then he’s leaning back against the railing, his arms crossed, his grey polo a little wrinkled at the sleeve from how it was folded. 

It’s honestly nice to see a flaw. 

She traces her finger over it without thinking, and then notices that Harry’s eyes are a little dark, watching her. 

She lets her hand fall back to the railing. 

“I just needed a minute,” she says, and he nods. 

He’s not going to apologize - she knows him well enough by now than to think he would - but that’s fine. They don’t really do that. Apologize to each other for the way they work together. Because as hard as it is, as miserable as it can be, it’s effective. They’re as good at it as she thought they’d be. And other people think so, too.

“When I was a kid, when I’d get mad, I’d just like. Scream,” he tells her. She looks over, surprised by the fact he’s sharing. He’s staring straight ahead, as if he’s imagining a scene in the house ahead of him, unfolding in his memory. “And when I say ‘kid’ I mean til I was easily 12.”

“Seriously?”

He shrugs, stays neutral, not looking at her. “I didn’t really have role models to like, show me how to talk about my feelings.” She blinks, looks down. Her family was...very much the opposite. Raised voices were rare. They settled their disagreements by talking. They had an ‘emotion wheel’ when they were little to help them pinpoint what they were feeling. “My dad just drank himself into oblivion, and my mom paid as many people as she could so she didn’t have to deal with us. Housekeeper, nanny, cook.”

“Jesus,” she breathes out. He looks over, finally, the corner of his lip tugging upward. “I had no idea.”

He lets out a sort of bitter laugh. “She’d be thrilled to hear that.”

God, his mom’s always been such a bitch, hasn’t she? 

“This is probably the completely wrong thing to say, but…” He tilts his head like he knows what’s coming. She can’t handle the thought that he knows her, _too_. The way she’s learning about him, he’s learning about her. “I miss my family so fucking much.” 

Her throat gets tight and she knows her breath hitches. Harry moves closer, reaches over so his arm is sort of across her chest, then rests his hand on her upper arm and he tugs her towards him. She leans her head against his shoulder. 

“I know,” he says softly, his mouth near her ear. She doesn’t know _how_ he knows. She talks about Cassandra, sometimes. Maybe that’s how. 

(Or maybe he just knows the kind of person she is, knows by now how important her family is to her. That’s scarier.)

“It’s not like they’re perfect. God, there’s...So much shit I should probably be more messed up over, but I just…” She wipes her face as soon as the tear falls, and then her hand sort of just ends up on his forearm as it rests across her. His skin is warm beneath her hand, and she likes the contact. “I’m coming to terms with the fact that maybe this is forever, and that I’ll never see them again, and maybe they’re somewhere missing me, too.”

She can _hear_ the little grin in his voice when he says, “I bet they are. How could they not be?”

Allie looks over just to confirm it, and it’s true, and he’s just standing there with his arm around her because she needed comfort, and his hair is a little too long, falling in his face in a way she thinks he hates, and… He’s being sweet, and he looks so good, and she can’t fucking help herself around him sometimes. 

She leans over, presses her lips against his, and he’s surprised, she can tell. Which makes sense. God, she’d been so adamant. And she still is. This can’t happen. They _can’t_. And So when she pulls away, she takes a full step back, rubs her lips together once he’s not touching her anymore. 

“What was that?” he asks. 

She shakes her head. “I dunno.” She closes her eyes again. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have”

“Won’t hear me complaining.”

Just that, his tone of voice and the way he says that like he’s _always_ going to want to kiss her is enough to spark heat low in her belly. It’s familiar, with him. It happens all the time. (Hell, earlier, when he’d leaned over her shoulder to read and she could hear his breathing and smell him, whatever that body wash is he uses… It’s just a really familiar feeling. Has been for literal years.) 

“Let’s get back to work?” she says, and it’s a question, because she thinks they probably should talk about this, and she should give him the chance to say that, too. But she thinks he’ll go along, agree with her. Because about _this_ , he usually does. 

… … …

He and Allie are meeting the council at the church, and they’re walking across the green and arguing about a particularly sticky issue. Allie’s looking too hot for his attention span to handle, honestly, in skinny jeans and this white button down top that’s cut low and loose and you’d think after weeks of working together he’d be able to not be distracted by her, but that’s definitely not the case. He looks at something on his phone, slows down his walk a little (which he knows irritates her, which is sort of why he’s doing it) and then when he looks up, her hair’s just curling down her back against her shirt, the ends down past her waist now. He checks out her ass in her jeans, and then she spins around and he puts his eyes back on his phone. 

“Can you pay attention?” she asks, grinning, like he’s just annoying her now. He smiles back, slips his phone into his pocket. “I don’t know how this is going to go over. I really don’t.”

He shrugs. “We’ll see. Grizz’ll have opinions. We should wait to see what happens. You and I don’t need to decide this.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “I’m sorry. Are you saying you don’t need to be right about something?”

Harry purses his lips, tilts his head. That’s not at all what he’s saying. 

“Why’re you just assuming he’ll agree with _you_?”

Next to them, the ceremonial flame is still burning, even with no one paying attention to it at all, stoking it or refilling the natural gas tank, or whatever. 

It flickers, goes out. Allie grabs his arm, holds her breath. Harry just watches. He checks the time on his watch. It’s...honestly, it’s got to be roughly around the same time as it happened during the opening ceremony. He doesn’t know why they haven’t taken this fucking thing down yet. Something, maybe, about it being a reminder that another world existed before they got here. 

They stare for...god, it must be minutes. Allie doesn’t say anything, her hand still on his arm. He tries to take deep breaths, tries to not freak out. 

The flame starts slowly again, as if just being lit, and then grows, and Allie starts laughing. 

Like, really laughing. Full on belly laugh. Uncontrollable. Harry just watches, thinking she looks good like this, but also concerned that she’s losing her fucking mind. 

“That might as well be a thing that happened,” she says finally, wiping her fingers under her eyes carefully, and Harry finally chuckles. “Add it to our list of shit to try to figure out, would you?”

“Honestly, it feels like a stupid fire is the least of our worries.”

“See, maybe that’s what they _want_ us to think,” she says, tapping her temple, narrowing her eyes. He smiles at her because she’s funny, okay? She makes him laugh. 

“Who are _they_?” he asks, and she shrugs. Harry pulls the church door open for her, says, “Hey,” before they walk in. 

She stops, looks up at him, her back sort of against the door his hand’s still holding. They should really be more careful about this. About how they act with each other. Especially in public. They’re friendly. They have a friendship. That friendship includes laughing and touching. No one’s said anything, to his knowledge. They should make sure it stays that way.

But like, also. Whatever. He lets his eyes drop to the skin of her chest where her shirt’s cut all low, then down further. When he drags them back up, her eyes are a little dark, looking up at him through her lashes. 

“It’s a good outfit, right?” she asks, and maybe she’ll always have his number. That’s what she thinks, probably. As if he’s hiding at all how he feels about her appearance. As if he ever has. She _knows_ he stopped her to comment on it. He lets out a hum in response. “Thought you might like it.”

He gives her a private little grin, the kind they share too often, probably. But that’s their business. 

“What?” he asks, though, because… _what_?

She rolls her eyes all playfully, says, “You’re gonna make us late,” and then walks away, into the church. Harry hears her let out a little laugh when she hears him take a deep breath. 

A thing he knows he’s gotten better at in the last few weeks is putting his attraction for her aside when they’ve got work to do. He thinks she does it, too. For all their shit about not acting on this, they still _look_ at each other sometimes, and he thinks if the circumstances were literally any different, they wouldn’t be able to help themselves. Sometimes they still can’t, apparently. Like when she kissed him at his house that time. Or when he put his arms around her the other day in the kitchen when she was making them coffee. She’d just looked so hot, her bare feet on his kitchen tiles, her hair all messy down her back, her little cropped tee shirt showing skin. He’d just walked over, set his hands on either side of her against the counter, his chest to her back. She’d tilted her head to the side like maybe she wanted him to…

But they just stood there together, breathing, waiting for the coffee, and then, when both cups were ready, he moved away, handed her one, and they went right back to work. 

When he’s home alone after the meeting, he does his nightly laps in the pool because honestly the physical activity makes his brain feel less edgy. And he’s a good swimmer and he enjoys it. One of the things he took away from playing water polo as a kid. He lies outside after, on one of the obnoxious chairs, looking up at the sky. He thinks he hears something in the trees at the edge of the property, but it’s too dark to see anything. The noise stops, so he figures it was just a bird or something. 

The next day, the weather is hot and humid but Allie wants to work outside. He catches her staring off into the trees, and that’s just creepy enough given what happened last night - with the flame and then the noise in the trees - to make him ask her what’s up. 

“What do you think’s out there?” she asks, almost absently, like it’s philosophical and she’s not expecting an answer. 

And anyway, they sort of have one. Grizz and Luke led a group of people on a few trips in every direction. All they found was a massive patch of land, a pond, and a whole lot of trees. 

“Fuck all,” Harry answers honestly, and goes back to his laptop. 

Allie settles her foot up next to his thigh on his chair and he doesn’t ask her to move. 

… … …

She hears first about a fight at the cafeteria. Like an actual fight. Punches thrown.

She’s just trying to fucking sleep in. Honestly. Yesterday, she and Harry decided things were going so smoothly they could take a day off. She was going to stay in bed late, take a long shower, pull on her black nightgown she feels amazing in, and stay in her room all day by herself. Truly have some alone time. Maybe do her nails. Pluck her eyebrows. Listen to music and act like pampering herself with even this basic kind of shit is a luxury. 

And literally, _literally_ she’s just in bed with her eyes closed and her hand between her legs because _yeah_ having alone time sort of means this, too, but then her phone is chiming and she’s hating herself for not turning the goddamn thing _off_.

She’s frustrated when she gets there. Frustrated that her day’s been interrupted, sure, but specifically that her orgasm was. And frustrated that Harry got here first. Frustrated that he looks exactly as good as he always does. That he’s who she was thinking of a half hour ago because it’s _easy_ to imagine. Just looking at him makes her want to be alone. Or alone with him. Which...Yes, she was glad for a break from the work, but, she realizes, a break from him wasn’t necessary - she likes being with him. Which is terrifying and irritating and surprising all at once. 

“What’s going on?” she asks, sounding shitty. She knows this. If she’d known Harry was coming - if she’d known the whole council would be here - she would’ve stayed in bed. Maybe they don’t need her. 

“Guy’s pissed he’s on sanitation for the third week in a row,” Harry supplies. Allie takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. He gives her a curious look, like he can tell something’s up with her and wants to know what her deal is. She’s barely been here three minutes, so he can stop that. There’s no way he can read her that well. “Said something to Shoe about switching with him, and Shoe said no. No one heard what came next, but Shoe says the guy swung on him, so he grabbed his arm and...Something about a UFC move. I don’t know.”

“Well, if you don’t know, why are you the one talking?” she asks. He gives her a pissed off look, which is fair, because that was pretty uncalled for on her part. She softens a little and he looks even more concerned about her. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I just really didn’t want to deal with anything today.”

“I know,” he tells her, and then adds, “Neither did I.” 

She nods, because that’s fair. That’s really fair. She’s not going to pretend Harry’s been slacking. They’ve both been working their asses off and wanted a break from the pressure. It’d be awful of her to act as though he doesn't need the break just as much as she does.

“Who is it?” she asks, hoping that they’ve cleared the air and can move on now. 

Harry moves, turns his head, and she notices how his shirt’s unbuttoned just so, the navy fabric moving against his skin when he turns. Her eyes travel up his throat, along his jaw. She meets his eyes and realizes he’s absolutely seen her do most of that. He narrows his eyes a little like he’s got even more questions about what’s going on with her. Probably wondering how she can go from pissed to _this_ in seconds. What he doesn’t know is this is where she started. Being pissed was an interlude. 

She needs to focus. On something other than the way she knows he likes it when she touches his neck. 

“Greg Dewey.”

“What?” she asks, distracted. 

Harry laughs a little, quietly. “Allie. What the fuck?” he chuckles, brows lifting like he _knows_. Like he knows and he likes it. 

Honestly, it’s usually him who’s being blatantly obvious about his attraction to her, not the other way around. She never really stops him, never really mentions it. Sure, she initiated their last kiss, but they don’t _talk_ about that, or the way he checks her out, the way he touches her sometimes. The way they both have to know if things were different - if all this wasn’t all this - they’d be spending a lot more time in bed together. She’s honestly never liked him more. The more she learns about him, the more attractive he is to her. She thinks he’s sort of...There’s just a lot to like. A lot of the things she was looking for in a partner back in the real world are boxes he checks. She hasn’t said anything because she _can’t_. This incident, today, is enough evidence of that. They need to focus. 

She is clearly not focused, though, despite them not acting on this. So what’s the difference, other than she’s sexually frustrated and trying hard to ignore her feelings and now much she’s come to want him? 

She’s usually so good at hiding it. She needs to remember - like, right now - how to do that. 

“Nothing,” she says all softly, gives him a look she hopes tells him to drop it. 

She is a grown woman and a professional and she can get through this without pouting about her ruined day off or thinking about how her co-lead could make her feel if she’d let him. 

She talks to Shoe while Harry talks to Dewey. It’s a short conversation for them both. Shoe just says the guy lost it when he was told no, that he called Shoe a truly awful name, then swung. Shoe blocked it, cranked Dewey’s arm behind his back and pressed his face into the table, and then Luke was there to break it up. 

Allie doesn’t know what to do with any of this, honestly. She wonders if they should talk to more people about the schedules to make sure no one else is as upset as Grew Dewey apparently is. Harry says the guy’s ‘fucked’, but apologized for the fight and said he’ll finish out his week on sanitation as long as he can get something different next week. Which sounds like a fucking reasonable solution and one they could’ve come to if he’d just spoken with someone on the council, or Harry or Allie in the first place. 

Harry walks her home. She’s quiet most of the way. He’s grinning like he’s been let in on a secret, or something, and Allie should’ve really stuck to her guns when she said she didn’t need him to take her. She’s fine on her own. 

“So. Good morning?” he asks, and Allie refuses to fucking blush, because he’s just being a jerk and there’s no way he knows _anything_ other than that she finds him attractive, which absolutely should not be a surprise to him. 

“Could’ve been better,” she says, liking that she’s referring to a specific thing he couldn’t possibly guess. 

(He could. She’s not naive enough to think the thought hasn’t crossed his mind. That she’s alone in her bed every night. And the way she knows he’s probably thought about it is because she’s thought about him. Alone and…) 

“Yeah?” he asks, and Allie just isn’t going to play this game with him. “Let’s take tomorrow, since today was interrupted.”

For some reason, that’s what makes her blush. The word interrupted. Which is what happened earlier.

“Yeah,” she says, and he’s positively smirking as they get to her front door. “What?”

“Your poker face could use some work.”

She looks him dead in the eye and says, “I have nothing to hide, so I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Mm.” 

God, he’s fucking smug. 

It should be unattractive. It isn’t. 

Harry looks to her door, lifts his chin towards it, says, “Enjoy your alone time,” and Allie doesn’t say goodbye and instead can only think about getting him the fuck out of her head. 

… … …

It’s totally a typical town meeting. Discussion of the work schedule, the menu for the week, how the crops are coming along, some suggestions for social events. A couple of the teachers in the group have decided to set up some classrooms for anyone who wants to learn about their specialty topics. Elle’s volunteered to teach piano if anyone wants it. One of the kids is taking ballet lessons from her. 

But then the back door opens, and Dewey walks in, hand shaking as he holds a gun in front of him in a way that makes Harry think the guy’s never pulled a trigger before in his life. Allie steps down off the altar and Harry grabs her, his arm around her waist. What the _fuck_ is she doing?

The kids all sit lined up on the front pew, and Harry notices the movement when Becca gathers them all up, heads to the side wall. God, if she can...He doesn’t know what the fuck’s going on, but he’s pretty sure kids shouldn’t see it. He honestly loves her a little for how quickly she moved into action. Some parental instinct she has despite not having a kid of her own. 

“Put the gun down,” he says, because no one else is saying a fucking thing. He clocks where Grizz is. Where Luke is. Jason and Clark. The sort of strongest people here. They’ve talked about this. If shit went down. But Harry knows he’s panicking and assumes they are, too. “Dewey! Put the gun down, man.” 

It’s fucked - completely fucked - but he remembers watching that episode of The Good Wife where the main lawyer guy dies by gunfire in the courtroom. For some reason, that’s the thing that crosses his mind. 

Dewey takes aim, and Allie struggles against Harry, but he holds her back, turns his head to look at her, to tell her, “ _Stop_ ,” which she doesn’t appreciate and looks a little frantic. 

“This is fucking misery,” Dewey says, stepping closer. “This hellhole you’ve created. _She’s_ created. This is all her fault.”

“It’s not,” Harry says, but it’s weak, because the closer Dewey gets, the bigger the gun looks. The more ominous. Behind Dewey, Harry sees Becca and the kids leave through the door Kelly’s holding open. “You don’t have to agree with everything, but you can’t...Just stop, okay? Stop and we can figure this out.” 

Dewey’s arm goes rigid when he points, takes actual aim. He’s crying. Harry thinks...Well, he knows what it looks like to see people in a mental health crisis. He knows. He’s seen himself, though that’s different. Really different. But it’s...It’s dark, and scary, and he has sympathy for the guy right up to the moment he calls Allie a bitch. 

“I’d be better off if she was dead.”

The crowd sort of murmurs, scared whispers about this line of thinking. Allie’s nails are digging into Harry’s arm. He doesn’t know what the fuck to do, but he knows he’s not letting her move out from behind him. When she tries, he holds her harder, shoves her behind him. She trips a little on the step, falls, and Harry glances over his shoulder to make sure she’s okay. She’s looking up at him with sort of wild eyes. Scared. He just stands in front of her, makes himself as big as possible, guarding her. Then Grizz is there, too, and Harry’s so fucking relieved he can’t stand it. 

“You’re not gonna fucking touch her,” Harry says, firm. 

This isn’t a negotiation. 

Dewey looks, for the first time, less scared and more lewd, this weird little grin spreading on his lips. 

“She all yours, Bingham?” he asks, and Harry balls his hands into fists. Behind Dewey, he can see Luke and Jason moving quietly like they’re gonna try to tackle him, or something. Harry’d like it if they’d fucking _hurry_. “That’s why you’re so protective? You’re the only one who gets to fuck her?”

Yeah, this needs to end. Now Harry’s fucking pissed, jaw clenched at what was just said. He takes two steps forward, until Dewey raises the gun again, that half scared, half pissed look back on his face.

He really wants to kick this guy’s ass for talking about her that way, but he’s never fought before in his life. Plus, he doesn’t stand a chance against a bullet. 

“How do you think this is gonna go?” Harry asks, and it’s a genuine question. 

“That’s not my fucking problem!” 

Harry only peripherally registers that the gun’s going off. His adrenaline surges and he ducks on instinct, hits the floor and then looks behind him towards Allie. Grizz is over her, covering her. Harry needs to know she’s okay, and when she turns her head he sees her catch his eye, like maybe she’s doing the same thing. 

God, he’s not this fucking brave, okay? But he stands anyway, and moves towards Dewey, who almost looks surprised at the shot. 

Harry can do nothing but squeeze his eyes shut when Dewey turns the gun on himself. 

He doesn’t realize - can’t really process - the chain of events until minutes later, when he notices the commotion and sees that Will’s holding onto his shoulder, that at some point, Will also came to the front to protect Allie, and that he took a fucking _bullet_ to his shoulder. Kelly’s there next to him, and so is Allie, and Harry looks between that and Dewey, and maybe this all happened faster than it felt, because he’s fucking furious, wondering why the _fuck_ Jason and Luke didn’t actually take him down. Jason’s kneeling by Dewey, checking for a pulse, or something, and securing the gun. 

Sam’s there next to him, and Harry’s heart is pounding, and he feels cold all over, and his ears are ringing, but Sam says, “You have to do something,” and Harry knows that’s true. 

Helena’s crying nearby, Luke’s arms around her. Harry tells them to find something to cover the body. Jesus Christ, what is his life that these are words he’s saying?

“Where’s Laura?” he asks, looking around. She’s a doctor, too. He spots her over by Will and waves her over. “We need to pronounce him. We can’t just...”

She nods, calm, collected. It makes him feel just marginally better that she’s level-headed. She’s an ER doctor; she knows how this goes. Kelly’s a GP and probably better equipped for this, and Laura should see to Will’s injury, but Harry just...it’s all insane and there’s literal blood everywhere. He doesn’t even think he’s actually thinking clearly. He’s just _moving_ without registering what he’s doing.

He tells everyone to go home, to travel in groups if they need to, to feel comfortable. He says they’ll host a special meeting in a couple days, that everyone will be informed via the usual channels. He mentions the schedule for tomorrow is unchanged as of right now, but if anyone needs time, they need to tell him and Allie immediately once they decide. 

Then he turns around and sees Allie looking right at him. There’s an expression on her face he’s never seen before. He doesn’t want to focus on that. He’s fucking pissed at her. For trying to walk towards someone who had a gun and was saying insane shit about her. What the fuck was she trying to do, get herself killed? 

“We need to get Will to the clinic,” Kelly tells him, blood on her hands and her clothes. 

Laura’s there next to Will now, helping him stand. He’s saying he’s fine. Harry doesn’t understand why everyone is being so fucking stupid. But he just nods his acknowledgement, and then Allie’s standing with Will, following, and Harry reaches for her upper arm before she can pass him. 

He just says, “We need to talk,” and she nods. She looks pale. Like a ghost. He’s never seen her with so little colour. 

“I’m going with him.”

He says, “I’ll meet you there,” because he can’t fucking leave a _body_ in the church, can he? No. He needs to make sure everyone gets out of here, and that they decide what to do with Dewey. He’s a little pissed at Allie for this, too. She dragged him into this leadership thing and now she’s leaving him on his own to deal with the worst thing that’s happened so far. It’s fucked up and he doesn’t appreciate it. But Will’s her best friend, so he gets her staying with him. 

She’s _his_ best friend and he just put himself between her and a gun. Maybe she doesn’t realize that’s what it is, but it hits him pretty fucking hard. 

Kelly asks him, gently, caringly, “Are you okay?” and he nods, but knows he’s breathing hard. She points to his hands. They’re shaking, he realizes. “Harry. Are you going to be okay?”

He understands, then, what she’s asking. This is fucked, and he’s shaking and terrified and she’s his sponsor, or whatever. 

“Yeah,” he says, and he thinks it’s true. She doesn’t let go. “Yeah. I’m good. Promise.”

She nods gently, says something about calling her later, and if he doesn’t, she’s calling him or coming over. He nods at that, too. 

It’s gotta be 10pm by the time they move Dewey and clean the church. He’s exhausted, and at one point he sits at the back in a pew and hangs his head because his adrenaline’s completely gone now and he’s properly processing what’s happened. Like, they’re literally digging a grave at the edge of town, in that cemetery out there. A few people offered to help. Took the body with them. Harry’s...No one should have to fucking do this. 

Helena’s wearing yellow kitchen gloves and scrubbing blood from the pews. 

He feels someone sit next to him, looks over. It’s Becca, looking tired and a little too gentle. Like maybe she’s been put up to this. 

“Will’s gonna be okay,” she tells him, and Harry lets his breath out, didn’t realize he was so worried until he’s flooded with relief. “He’ll stay overnight, but they removed it. He’s okay. Resting.”

“Good,” he croaks out, his voice hoarse from the shouting earlier and talking to people, giving directions, answering questions and making decisions. “That’s good.”

She waits a second, puts her hand on his shoulder. He looks over. “You did everything you could.” He feels his throat get a little tight, unexpectedly. He nods, grinds his teeth. “And, selfishly, for me...The way you protected her…” 

“Yeah,” he breathes, not wanting to talk about it. “I mean, she’s…” He wants to choose his words carefully. Settles on, “She’s important to me, too.”

Becca squeezes his shoulder, stands and leaves. He hears her tell everyone to get some sleep. Then she goes over to Helena, says something quiet to her, probably about the fact that if the blood’s not out of the carpet by now, it probably isn’t gonna come out. 

He meant to thank Becca for getting the kids the hell out of here. He'll have to remember to do that later. 

He checks his phone as they lock up, Allie’s texted him that she’s waiting for him at the clinic. When he arrives, he’s sort of struck by how quick he is to anger again. It’s not fair. This wasn’t her fault. He knows for sure she’s blaming herself. That’s not what he’s mad at. 

Then she says, “They wouldn’t let me leave alone,” as if that’s absurd, all things considered, and Harry just…

“Why would you want to?” he asks sharply, and she flinches just a little. He sighs, doesn’t want to do this here. Doesn’t want to do it at all. Doesn’t, though, want to not be around her. “Let’s just go.”

He turns to leave and hears her footsteps behind him. Her place is about 10 minutes from the clinic. He wishes he could just drive. God, he misses driving. He wants...He wants a lot of things. 

He doesn’t know what the fuck to say to her. The night air is hot around them, the humidity making his skin tacky, especially after spending a few hours cleaning the way he did. He slows a little so she falls into step next to him, her arms crossed. She’s definitely been crying. She’s pulled her hair back. Her white tee shirt that has the cactus on the pocket is spotted with blood, a big smear of it at her side. 

“I thought he was going to kill you,” she finally says when they’re about halfway to hers. He was just getting used to the quiet. Felt less awkward. She’s barely audible. Harry doesn’t know what to say. “And you just...you literally pushed me away.”

“Allie,” he says, incredulous, hand making a fist over and over, “that shit wasn’t about me. It was about you.”

“I know,” she whispers after a moment, her eyes on the ground. “I heard all the same things you did. I just. We could’ve stood up to him together.”

“Jesus, Allie!” He’s shouting. Raising his voice, anyway. He doesn’t want to do that, so he pauses, breathes. “He fucking shot at you. That’s why Will had a bullet in his shoulder.”

“I know that,” she snaps. Then she sniffles, wipes at her nose with her hand. Shit. She’s crying. “Thanks for reminding me that’s my fault, too.”

This conversation is stupid. They’re not gonna be able to talk about it in any real way when they’re both exhausted and emotional and blaming themselves for what went down. And he gets why she’d be feeling this way. She’s not wrong. No, she _is_ wrong. It isn’t her fault, but she’s the cause. Those are different things. One is totally out of her control. Clearly, Dewey had some other shit going on. Like, you don’t just snap and shoot someone and then yourself if there’s not some things a bit unbalanced in your head, probably. Harry’s feeling fucked up about the fact he didn’t clock it the other day when he was talking to the guy.

“It’s not your fault. I’m not saying it’s your fault.” He says it firmly, because it’s absurd for her to think that. She’ll agree eventually. She’s too smart not to. “Let’s just table it. Talk about it later.”

“Fine.” 

She sounds small. Like she does want to keep talking, wants to get all this out of her head. He knows she talks to process. Which he gets and usually is fine with. But right now, after the evening he’s had, he just absolutely doesn’t have it in him to support her in this, too. He’s been supporting her all night, in some fashion or another. He doesn’t think it’s too awful of him to draw a line and protect himself here, too. 

He doesn’t want to think about what would’ve happened if he hadn’t intervened. If his first instinct hadn’t been to put himself in front of her. And he’s thinking too hard about where the fuck that courage came from, because it’s not a thing he’s ever accessed before. He doesn’t want to consider that it’s just _her_ that had him tapping into it. That he cares about her so much that the idea of anything happening to her made him do something so out of character. 

He needs some fucking sleep. 

“I’m sorry,” she says after a while, when they’re turning onto her street and her house is in view. There’re some lights on, including the one on the porch. Harry wonders who’s there. Then Allie’s looking up at him when he glances over at her. “For leaving like that. I should have stayed. You shouldn’t have had to do all that on your own.”

He says, “It’s okay,” without really knowing if he means it. It just feels like it really doesn’t matter. They can’t change how shit went down. And if they could, her sticking around isn’t the thing he’d fix. “Don’t worry about it.”

She scoffs. “I will worry about it. Probably for a while.”

“Well, don’t.” He should try to sound like less of an asshole. He knows he’s acting this way because his nerves are shot, and he’s tired, and he’s just witnessed something no one should have to, and he’s fucking scared for her, for all of them. He’s acting this way because he’s too exhausted to be anything different. “Relieved I could handle it?”

He nudges her elbow with his so she’ll pick up on the fact he’s joking, if his tone fell flat. 

“I mean…” She trails off, then her teeth scrape over her lip. “Relieved that I didn’t have to do it alone. Not surprised at all about your ability.” 

“Right,” he sort of laughs. God, _he’s_ surprised. There’s no way she or anyone else thought he could manage. Like, Kelly literally asked him if he was gonna break his years of sobriety over this. That’s how people see him. And he gets it. But Allie doesn’t have to say shit right now just to be nice and placating. 

“I told you,” she says seriously, “that I thought you’d be good at this. You are. And I notice.”

He nods instead of trying to come up with some kind of response to that. 

He really doesn’t want to let her be the one to push the door open. There’s obviously someone in the house, and it’s obviously not Will, and not for the first time he wonders if they should just assume Dewey’s alone in his thinking or if there could be others. But the way Allie puts her body between his and the door lets him know that there’s no way she’s going to let him go in ahead of her like she needs his protection. Like, maybe, there’s anything to protect against. 

Sam and Grizz are sitting in the living room, just the lights on, cups of tea on the table. They both look properly worried when they see Allie. Harry almost appreciates it. 

“We checked the entire house,” Grizz says. “Basement and all the closets. The attic and the garage. All clear.” Harry sighs his relief, nods. Allie looks nervous. She says something about Will being safe. “We’ll stay the night.”

Allie turns to Harry, then, looks up at him with her eyes all soft, and he mostly just wants to… “Will you stay, too?” she asks quietly, though there’s no way Grizz won’t hear, probably.

Honestly, the idea of going home to his house, where no one’s probably checked to see if anyone’s lurking in the shadows…

“Yeah. I’ll stay if you want me to.” 

She just nods quickly, then she’s walking up the stairs, and he’s following after saying goodnight to Sam and Grizz, and then in her room, she pushes the door partly closed and pulls her shirt off over her head. Harry doesn’t look away. He should, but he doesn’t. She doesn’t seem bothered. She tells him she’s going to have a quick shower, but that he can take his side of her bed. As if they have sides of the bed. They’ve shared a bed to sleep twice. One and a half times, really, if he wants to be petty about it. Which he does, right now. But also she was on his right both times, so he figures that’s what she means. This is fucked. 

He’s not sleeping in pants. There’s no way. He folds them and sets them at the end of the bed. He gets into bed and glances around her room. It looks...a little childish. Which sort of makes sense; this is her childhood room. It’s been weird for him to be in his, too. Or, at least, it took a while to get used to it again. Even though his bedding is different and some of the stupid shit he used to have in his room is gone. Like all his water polo trophies and whatever, and the animal heads, mementos from trips with his dad. He doesn’t know where they are. Allie’s got a little desk and a bookshelf. Her closet doors are open and he sees the dress she wore to prom in there. It’s hanging at the back, behind all the clothes she normally wears. Her suitcase is on the floor of the closet, shoes piled on top of it. He wonders how much shit she brought with her for the original weekend. He knows she’s been ‘shopping’ from her mom’s closet. He…

He should stop being nosy. He checks his phone instead, texts Kelly to let her know he’s fine, he’s staying with Allie, and they’re not alone. There’s a message from Luke and another from Gordie. He isn’t gonna reply to them this late; nothing that needs action anyway. Luke’s just saying the body’s buried, and Gordie’s saying something about stepping in to take Stef’s shift tomorrow because she needs time.

She walks back into the room, towel wrapped around her body, little water droplets dotting her shoulders. She grabs a little pair of shorts from her drawer, then a white tank top with little straps. She catches his eye when she steps into her shorts, pulls them up under the towel, then turns around and takes the towel off. Her bare back is right there, her curves all soft and tempting, and she pulls her shirt on absolutely knowing - she’s got to - that he’s watching. 

There’s a tattoo on her side, the side that’s furthest from him. He can’t see it clearly and he’s never noticed it before. It must be new. Something that happened between the last time they slept together before all this, and when they arrived in West Ham for the occasion. He didn’t see it last time she was naked. Doesn’t know how he missed it when they were in the pool. But he definitely didn’t catch it. Wants to know more. Wants to see it. 

“Stop staring,” she says, sounding teasing, when she gets into bed next to him, turns on her side so she’s facing him, and slides one hand up under her pillow, leaves the other on the mattress between them. The light’s still on. He thinks, right now, he could fall asleep like this, with her looking at him across the pillow and the room all lit up. 

“Maybe I’m afraid if I take my eyes off you, something bad’ll happen,” he says, and he doesn’t think he means it. Not really. 

She grins, blinks slowly, all tired but sexy. “I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact I was just almost naked.” Harry lets out a hum, shakes his head, purses his lips. She laughs softly, bends her legs. Her knees brush his thigh. She pouts a little. “Flirt with me.”

Harry laughs, gives her an incredulous look. “What?”

“Make things feel normal so I can go to sleep.” 

Honestly, when she puts it that way, it makes a lot of fucking sense, and he thinks it’ll work for both of them. When he turns on his side to face her, he reaches over, pushes her hair off her temple where it’s curling there, then traces his finger down behind her ear, lightly over her neck, her shoulder. He grazes the strap of her top, watches as he tugs it just a little, pushes it to the side. 

“You’re…” He watches her eyes slip closed when his hand moves to rest on her upper arm. She opens them slowly, waiting. “Really fucking beautiful.”

She sets her hand on his side over his shirt, closes her eyes again. The last thing she says before she falls right asleep is, “This doesn’t feel like flirting.”

She’s not wrong. 

Harry falls asleep shortly after, the light still on, his eyes too heavy and her bed too comfortable for him to fight it any longer.

… … ...

It’s been four days since Greg Dewey changed their entire town. Is still changing it after he’s gone. Allie’s a kind of tired she’s never been before. Emotionally exhausted and sick of talking and thinking and putting on a face like everything is fine - everything will be fine - and they’ve got this under control. Maybe they do, actually, but she isn’t sure. She’s never been less sure. And she’s literally thanking any god she can think of that Harry’s here and she doesn’t have to do this alone. 

(It’s been three days since she woke up with him in her bed, her flat on her back and him on his side, turned towards her still, just like they fell asleep. His hand on her stomach, thumb resting against the underside of her breast through her shirt. He looks nice when he’s sleeping. Peaceful. Any tension in his face gone, which she never realized was always there until she noticed its absence.)

Harry’s better at talking to people. Listening to them until he wants them to stop talking, and gently redirecting them, or explaining decisions and how things need to be. People are scared, and he gets that and validates their feelings. He’s trying to sound like he’s joking when she asks him how he learned to do that and he replies, “Three years of law school, and half a life of therapy,” but she thinks that’s the truth, at the heart of it. He keeps doing this thing where he tries to keep things lighter than they are. She thinks that’s for her benefit. She thinks he can tell she’s not handling this as well as she could. She’s torn between being pissed that he won’t just _say_ that, and being grateful that he can find it in him to be so generous with her. 

And that’s the word she’s thinking. That morning, the morning after, they went to his house, to their office, and sat on the sofa drinking coffee and talking about everything. She ended up crying and he ended up mad, but they didn’t let their emotions derail them. He shared that he was fucking terrified Dewey was going to shoot her, that the shit Dewey said about her made him so furious he almost couldn’t stand it. He told her that he was pissed that Luke and Jason didn’t rush him. Allie told him it definitely all happened faster than he thought it did. It took Luke and Jason most of the time Dewey was there to be able to get out of their seats unnoticed and get close enough to be in Harry’s field of view. Then everything just...escalated. 

She wanted to ask why he was so quick to put himself between Dewey and her. She thinks she knows the answer. And she should like it, she knows, but it’s also not that simple. She doesn’t want him in danger, either. She doesn’t want him acting fucking invincible to _save her_ , or something. She was fucking frantic at the thought of something happening to him. God, he said that thing in her bed about not wanting to let her out of his sight, but that is 100% how she felt. She didn’t want him to leave. She didn’t want to worry about him alone in his house. She didn’t want to be alone, either, but she really just...God, the thought of not having him close to her, close enough to touch, after literally thinking he was about to die...it was too much. 

She’s been thinking a lot about what all that means. For her. For them. She just doesn’t think she can ignore it, you know? It’s not nothing. It’s very much not nothing.

After a meeting, an open ‘town hall’ style thing, a bunch of them are milling around - the usual suspects, so to speak - after all questions are answered and everyone else has left. Harry’s sitting on the steps up at the front of the church, his hands behind him, looking devastatingly good to her. Helena’s organizing the anonymous comment sheets, things people wanted to say that maybe they didn’t want to say in front of everyone. Will’s there, too, his first public appearance since he was shot. Things seem to be settling. 

Luke says, “Hey, there’s a full wine cellar at my house and I think we could all use a fucking drink, yeah?”

Allie’s nodding, knowing it’s a probably stupid idea for all the people in power to drink - for anyone here to drink. She knows people have been doing it, but there’s inventory of that, too; anything that’s not in peoples’ houses, anyway. Requests for alcohol have to go through the same process as everything else. Which is good. It’s fine.

Allie realizes, belatedly, that they won’t _all_ be drinking, glances at Harry. He doesn’t seem bothered or anxious at all. Just says that Luke’s backyard has always been great with that little fireplace his parents put in when Luke was in 10th grade. Kelly’s watching him, too. He’ll be fine. 

Allie’s sitting in the sun, glass of moscato in her hand, eating frozen taquitos Luke pulled from deep in a freezer in his garage. It’s the most fucking ridiculous drink and food combination she’s had since she was in high school, but she doesn’t care. Both taste amazing and she’s not going to apologize for this. She’s wearing shorts Becca gave her, a pair that don’t fit Becca anymore but look pretty good on Allie, even if they’re a little tighter through the butt than she usually likes, and a tank top she found in Cassandra’s closet. It’s this flowing thing with a zipper up the front and paper cranes printed on it. Allie’s never seen it before; doesn’t remember it. She’s not wearing a bra because she didn’t feel like it and honestly, the rules of modesty are bullshit at the best of times, but _here_ , she really doesn’t care. If someone has issue with potentially seeing the shape of a nipple through her shirt, they can try to talk to her about it and see how that works out for them. 

Harry’s sitting across from her, talking to Grizz, sipping from a cup of iced coffee Helena made him. She’s such a good hostess it’s a little jarring. Like maybe this was a regular part of hers and Luke’s life back in the real world; having company in. Entertaining. Luke puts on some Frank Sinatra record and says something about how he’s been getting into all his parents’ old music. It’s nice. 

Someone tops up her glass before she’s even done, but she doesn’t mind at all. Eventually, Harry comes to sit next to her on this lounge chair, and she just moves her legs to the side so he can sit there with her. 

Becca, for some reason, starts laughing, and then says, “I literally just remembered I lost my virginity after a party at this house.”

Harry’s right in Allie’s line of sight, so she watches him smile a little and look down. God, he’s handsome, the pink sky making his skin look a little different than usual in a way that Allie’s having a hard time not looking at. 

“To who?” Luke asks, genuinely curious, and Becca just shakes her head, shares a look with Sam like maybe he’s the only other person here who knows. 

“Not telling.” 

Allie just sips her drink. She’s always had a hunch, but never confirmed it. It doesn’t matter. Then Becca gets a little excited and says something about how they should all share about their first times. 

Allie feels like Harry’s too close. She notices the way his eyes slide over to her, but ignores it. She doesn’t want to do this. Kelly tries to tell Becca to stop, that this is childish, but Becca just says, “Yeah, that’s the whole point.”

This is like, the most boring group to play this game with. Sam and Grizz have been together since high school, were each others’ firsts. Luke lost it to someone else when he and Helena were on a break senior year. He won’t say who, either, but the look on Helena’s face is pretty clearly telling everyone she absolutely knows and also absolutely doesn’t want to talk about it. They all tease her a little when she says hers was Luke, obviously, because she’d made such a big deal about chastity and purity and God, or whatever, during high school and then like, immediately gave it up to him when they went away to school. 

Kelly says she doesn’t want to share, but that it was after high school. Becca says she’s a gold star. Allie doesn’t know what that means, but Sam seems to, looks confused, then laughs, glances at Harry, and Allie just...Where’s Urban Dictionary when you need it? 

Harry just says, “High school,” when it’s his turn, and no one presses him, because like, obviously. No one’s surprised. 

Allie can feel his hip burning against her leg how he’s sitting when she says, “Yeah, same. High school.” 

Becca rolls her eyes. “You’re all boring. This was supposed to be fun and gossipy but you all refuse to be messy.”

Allie laughs, drains her glass. When she’s offered more, she just shakes her head. She’s just lightly buzzed, despite this being the first alcohol she’s had in months, and she likes the feeling - this is the best part of drinking - and doesn’t want to push it any further. 

Harry stands abruptly, says, “I’m gonna head out,” and seems a little tense, which makes her frown up at him. “I’ll see everyone later.”

“It’s early,” Helena says, equally as confused. The implication here is that this little party’s going to go late and she doesn’t want people leaving just yet. But he shakes his head, purses his lips like there’s no convincing him. 

Helena really is a good host, apparently, because she gives him this little hug and everyone says their goodbyes. 

Allie doesn’t want him to go. Or, she realizes, she doesn’t want to not be around him. Yeah, that’s more accurate. 

She gets up, too, says she’s leaving, and everyone’s voices, confused, questioning, follow her around the side of the house as she runs to catch up with him. 

“What’re you doing?” he asks, chuckling when she starts walking next to him. 

She definitely isn’t thinking when she says, “Coming home with you.”

His brow just goes up and he smiles a little, softly, and says, “Okay.” They’re quiet as they walk through the cul de sac. Luke’s house is in the same neighbourhood as Harry’s, just a couple streets over. They could definitely cut through some yards to get there, but they don’t. They stick to the streets. “You have fun?”

She nods, feels like she wants to slip her arm through his, so that’s what she does. “It was nice. Why did you leave like that?”

He raises his other hand, rubs it over the back of his neck. Allie pulls away so she can look at him. She knows her brows are knit together, and she thinks Harry thinks it’s cute, or something, based on the look he gives her. 

“I, um. Was just starting to feel like I wanted a drink?” he says delicately, carefully. Like he doesn’t want her to be worried about it. “Just wanted to remove myself.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, feeling selfish and silly for feeling like this, for liking this buzz as much as she does. 

“It’s fine,” he says, a little dismissive, like she really doesn’t have to apologize. “Seriously. I’m good.” He pauses a moment, slips his hand into the pocket of his pants. “Why’d you come with me?”

Maybe it’s the wine that has her saying, simply, “I wanted to be around you.”

He’s happy with that answer. She can tell by the way he smiles a little, privately, and looks down as they walk. She can see his house. She wonders, now, what they’re going to do once they get there. She’s there all the time, obviously. For work. And sometimes to hang out, but not like this. Not at night time. Not usually. Her cheeks flush, remembering the night she slipped into his pool, pulled him with her. God, everything had felt so much more simple then. Even so, she wants him more, now. Thinks it’s stupid she had two glasses of wine when all she wants is for him to know she means this. Wants it. Wants him. 

She’s not thinking clearly, and it’s not the alcohol. She’s just so caught up in him at this point she thinks she might lose her mind if she can’t get what she wants. If she can’t tell him. 

When they get inside, he pours them each a glass of water and says, “Let’s sit outside,” and leads her out to the back deck. The one high over the pool. The one they were on when she kissed him last. 

Honestly, she doesn’t know how Harry could think Luke’s yard was so good when he has all _this_. She seriously loves it out here. The lights and the trees and the pool. The little pool house. The furniture is pretty and comfortable and watching the sun dip down behind the trees is just…

“Who was your first?” she asks, curious, because she realizes she’s been thinking about it since he gave such a vague answer, probably, and she’s being nosy, obviously, but she thinks they’re close enough that he’ll tell her. 

“Seriously?” She shrugs, and she can’t tell what this look on his face is. Doesn’t know what it means. She thinks he’s _nervous_ , or something. “Allie.” She turns in her seat to face him, and he just has this little smile on his lips. He looks right at her as he says, “ _You._ ”

It’s pretty rare for her to feel speechless. She blinks. Tries to process. God, she remembers so much about that night. And if she’s being honest, it hadn’t been like, _good_ , necessarily. It wasn’t bad and it’s not something she looks back on with regret whatsoever. She’s glad it was him. She’s always felt that way, even isolated from whatever she feels for him now. That’s not clouding her recollection of that night and her thoughts and feelings afterward. He’d been gentle and careful and a little clumsy and definitely sort of...she doesn’t know if it was selfishness or foolishness. Now she thinks it was just a lack of experience.

And yeah, she learned earlier that it wasn’t Kelly, but she didn’t think that meant...Like, no offense intended, but he was kind of an asshole back then, so the idea that maybe he’d cheated or been with someone during one of his and Kelly’s off periods, or that he slept with someone else before he slept with Allie isn’t that hard to believe. 

“What?” is all she can force herself to say, though, and he lets out this little breath of a laugh like her reaction is unexpected or insulting. 

He gives her a cheeky little grin she thinks is just...No, she needs to not think about it, actually. 

“Was it my impressive showing that had you tricked?” She laughs too loudly, tips her head back, then realizes maybe it’s a shitty response, gives him a look. He’s still smiling when he looks down, his glass between his hands. She doesn’t think he’s offended.

“I just assumed,” she says, and he nods a little. He’s clearly not surprised that’s what she thought. For some reason, she wants to touch him. (She knows her reasons. Why is she acting like she isn’t in control of all this? She wants to touch him because she likes him. A lot. Maybe she even…) “I know we cleared this up before, but Harry, we’re...Every time since then has been really good.” 

He turns his head, gives her this really inviting look, his eyes sort of heavy, corner of his mouth ticked up. And he says, “I know,” which is just… _hot_ , frankly. And it shouldn’t surprise her or make her want him more, but it does. 

There’s just something really attractive about the fact that he knows he’s good in bed. That night on the phone, when he’d said that, she thinks he could tell she liked it. That he was having an effect on her. She doesn’t want to feel badly about that. 

Allie moves away from him, shakes her head, then stands up out of her chair and puts her hand in her hair. She knows they said they shouldn’t do this, but that was when she thought they’d just be falling into bed together because sex feels good. Now, she thinks...honestly, the way he looks at her sometimes is…

She looks right at him, and he’s just watching her, one of his hands on his thigh, his elbow sort of bent. He’s just really doing a lot right now without even realizing it, probably. 

“We should go inside,” she says. Harry’s just looking at her, and then she notices one brow tick up. Probably when he realizes she’s not just fucking around.

She knows she’s the one who told him they can’t. She knows she’s been giving him all sorts of mixed signals. Kissing him. Not stopping him when he touches her every chance he gets when they’re alone. The way she checks him out. Taking him into her bed the night of the incident. 

Actually fuck that. Those signals aren’t mixed at all. She hasn’t mentioned anything about them _not_ sleeping together in ages. Since around the time he agreed to work with her. Everything since then has been varying shades of green lights. 

She honestly might not wait for an answer if he doesn’t come up with something quickly. 

He just stands, though, sets his glass down next to hers, and nods a little. It’s like, the hottest thing he could do, honestly. Not make a big thing of this. 

She’s torn between wanting him to touch her _now_ , and wanting to just walk into the house and go straight for his bed. 

For all her boldness tonight, and for all his silence, she thinks the tables turn as soon as he takes a single step towards her. He looks her up and down, completely unsubtle, not that she cares one bit. Then once he’s next to her, he settles his hand onto her back, just above the waist of her shorts, guides her towards the house. She thinks it’s incredibly hot of him to give her what she wants, to agree with her, without actually saying a single word. He lets go of her once they’re inside, locks the door behind them and cuts the lights. Allie keeps walking, pushes her hair behind her ear when she hears him following. She feels her heart start racing when he slips his hand into hers just as they get to the stairs, and he starts up before her, leads her to his room like she’s never been there before, or something. It’s sexy and she feels...There’s an anticipation building and he hasn’t even kissed her yet. 

No, that happens once they’re in his room, the door closed behind them even though the entire house is empty. They’re right in the middle of the room, his fancy rug soft beneath her feet, her arms by her sides. He’s right in front of her, looking down at her, and then he brings both hands up to her face and she glances up at him from under her lashes. But he’s not _doing_ anything. She’s impatient - pretty sure she’s already wet for him, just from the anticipation alone - and can feel her chest rising and falling. He just slides his hands further back, thumbs just beneath her ears, and tips her head back a little. Then, when he kisses her, finally, one of his hands moves down to her hip and he tugs, just slightly, and that’s all she needs to feel like it’s okay to press herself all against him. One of her arms goes up around him, across his shoulders, so she’s on her toes just as he slides his tongue against hers. 

Honestly, they’ve always been so good at this. 

He pushes his hands up under her shirt, fingertips digging into her skin in a way that’s sexy and pleasing, and then he’s tugging at her top and she breaks away from him so he can just get the fucking thing off her. She notices him tilt his head towards her left side, trace his fingertip down her tattoo. It gives her goosebumps and then she’s reaching for the front of his jeans, but he stops her, covers her hands with his. It’s very hot that he’s so patient, but she doesn’t know why he’s not getting that she _wants him_.

“What?” she breathes, and then he gives her this hot as fuck smirk, glances down at her body again. 

“You first,” he says, and _that’s_ a loaded statement. She just blinks, reaches for the button of her shorts, eyes locked with him as she undoes it, as she takes down the zipper, as she pushes them down off her hips. Yeah, he looks terribly pleased with himself for getting his way, for getting her standing in front of him in her yellow underwear. 

“You’re staring again.”

He chuckles, drags his knuckle along her hip, just above the top of her underwear. She’s literally going to moan before he’s even down an article of clothing if he’s not careful. 

“Is that a problem? Am I supposed to help myself?”

She smiles, nods, leans up so her mouth is close to his. Knows it’s a little dirty when she says, “Yeah. Help yourself, Harry.” 

He breathes out, “Jesus,” and hooks his arm around her waist, turns them and moves them towards the bed. 

She’s getting frustrated with him when she’s on her back and he’s teasing the fuck out of her and he won’t even let her take his shirt off. She tries twice, and then he’s laughing hotly against her neck when she groans and drops both arms onto the bed. She says his name and his laughter turns into something else, this sort of half moan thing that makes her close her eyes. 

“What are you doing?” she asks, sort of laughing, because it’s clear he’s got some kind of agenda here, and she’d like to know what to expect so she doesn’t lose her goddamn mind with wanting him. 

He hums against her skin, leans back a little, looking handsome and a little disheveled. It’s not the first time she’s seen him this way, but she’ll never get used to it, maybe. Doesn't want to. He’s so hot like this. The confidence paired with his looks, and then his messy hair and his lips a little more pink than usual, and…

“Let me make up for the first time you were in this room,” he says, grinning in a way she can only describe as boyish. 

She doesn’t need him to do that. She needs him to do _something_ , though. 

“How?” she asks, mostly just out of curiosity. Because honestly, him getting undressed and hurrying the hell up would accomplish it, too. 

But then Harry’s slipping his hand into her hair beneath the back of her head, turning her just so, so he can have his lips right next to her ear. He tells her exactly what he wants to do with her, how he wants to accomplish this silly little goal he’s set for himself. Allie’s hips grind down at one point in particular, and then he breathes a laugh against her ear and god, he can just...he can do whatever he wants. 

When he finishes, he asks, “Do you want that?” and then moves his hand down, lightly, teasing over her skin, and right into her underwear as she nods. 

… … …

Allie looks as gorgeous in his bed as she looked in hers the other day. Better, maybe, because she’s naked, the sheets pushed mostly down off her back, her hair a little wild against his dark sheets. He’s not watching her sleep, really, but it’s also hard to look away. Hard not to reach over and touch her, maybe wake her up. He’s just thinking of last night, and how it felt with her. And like, the sex was good because they’re good together, but this felt different and he thinks maybe it was for her, too. They’re hot, yeah, and he thinks she was really fucking into the little game he had them playing, where he set out to make her come a couple times before even pressing into her. But it felt different because they know each other now. It’s not just acquaintances who like the look of each other and know it’ll probably feel good. No, they care about each other now. He cares about her more than he was ever expecting, but he likes that, too. And he knows she’s got some feelings for him. He can tell in the way she looks at him. The way they act around each other. The way she sort of looks after him, sometimes. And last night when she said she just wanted to be around him. 

Allie turns a bit, her elbow knocking gently into his ribs, her eyes blinking open. 

He’s got a lot of feelings about the way she smiles as soon as she sees him. He’s sort of filled up with this feeling of...Like maybe he could just tell her he…

“What a face to wake up to,” she says, voice a bit deeper than usual. He sort of wants to comment that maybe she’d have realized that sooner if she hadn’t left in the night. But it’s really not necessary and he doesn’t want to ruin it. 

She moves closer, turns on her side and pulls his arm, positions it just so, so she can lean up and lay her head against him. Her thigh goes over him, her skin all warm up next to his. 

He should say something. 

“Morning.” She lets out this little hum, hand pulling the covers up to his chest as if he’s cold, or something. “You stayed.”

He can hear her smiling when she says, “You earned it.” 

It’s so stupid it makes him laugh, press a kiss to her forehead, leave his lips there a little. But then his hand tugs the sheet down, because he noticed, just a few minutes ago, what her tattoo actually is, finally got a good look at it, and she looks down when he runs his thumb over it. 

“It’s the big dipper,” he says, and she lets out a small laugh, a breath, really, and shakes her head. “No?”

“Little dipper,” she tells him, sitting up. The sheet falls away and she’s there, naked from the hips up, turning a little to look at it. “Cassandra’s is the big dipper. We got them in the same spot.” She brushes her fingers over her tattoo, gives him this private little smile like maybe he understands her, or something. “It only looks like the big dipper when she’s not around.”

That’s fucking heavy.

He sort of wants to apologize, but he thinks that might just make her really sad, or something. He knows how much she misses Cassandra. That she doesn’t wish Cassandra was here, too, but wishes they were together. Wishes no one was here. 

“It’s sexy,” is what he says instead, and Allie smiles down at him, then moves closer, presses a kiss to his cheek. “I didn’t notice it last time. Or the time before. It’s new?”

She looks like she wants to say something about him mentioning their past, or something, but he’s not going to apologize for that, either. Like, these are just facts. He’s not talking about anything that didn’t happen and isn’t true. 

“We got them last year when we took this stupid roadtrip to Quebec City.”

“Why was it stupid?” he asks. He thinks it’s a random destination, but he thinks it’s cool that they went on a road trip together. He wonders what Allie’s like as a travel companion. He wonders how hard it’d be to picture her in his favourite places. The Azores. The Amalfi Coast. Edinburgh. 

“Neither of us know French, and it’s only like, an eight hour drive. We literally got there and realized what we wanted to do was drive. So we rerouted and did Montreal, the Laurentians, rented a cottage on an island in the Great Lakes, and stopped in Toronto.”

He gives her a look, brows together, head tilted. “So when you say it was a roadtrip to Quebec City, it was...really not that at all.” She laughs, shrugs her shoulder. He’s sort of distracted by her body, but that’s not new, either. “Sounds like a good time, though.”

She just nods, then looks down. Harry watches her slip into her head a little bit. Definitely thinking about Cassandra. About their old lives. About spontaneous trips. About trips at all. Fuck. 

“My last trip, I spent two weeks at the house in Ravello.” She looks at him questioningly. “Italy.”

She tuts out a laugh, presses her hand against his chest. “You have a house in Italy?” He smiles, shrugs. She shakes her head.

“A family place.”

She rolls her eyes. “Your family _would_ have property around the world.”

He grins. “Just a couple.”

She surprises him, slings her leg over him, settles herself over his hips. Fuck. She’s totally uncovered now, and his eyes drop because like, Jesus, is he not supposed to look? He puts his hands on her thighs, slides them upward, leans his head back against the pillows. She smiles at him like she likes his reaction, like she likes, too, the way he looks like this. 

“Where else?”

“Where else what?” he asks. 

Allie looks like she knows exactly why he’s being dumb. How could she not, honestly? It’s pretty understandable. Especially when she moves just a little, leans forward, puts her hands against his chest. 

“Does your family have houses.”

Right. They were talking about that. 

So he tells her, and she asks questions, asks if she can see pictures later. He likes that she says later. He definitely doesn’t even know where his phone is right now. Definitely doesn’t want her to have to move off him. When he says this, she laughs a little, jumps off him and leaves him alone in bed. What the fuck? She steps into his bathroom and he lies there trying to take breaths and hopes she isn’t getting ready to go. She comes back smelling like mouthwash, and somehow looking fucking adorable even though she’s still fully naked. He thinks she’s cute right up to the moment she slips back into bed, moves her hand across his stomach and kisses him. Then it’s something other than cute he’d use to describe her.

He says, “I thought maybe you were leaving.”

She just shakes her head, moves her hips so she’s against him, says something about how she’s been distracted for this entire conversation, thinking about how hot he was last night. How hot he is now. Her hand moves down when Harry kisses her. He knows they should definitely talk about real things, but he sort of thinks they should get to have this, too. Allie’s teeth take his bottom lip gently, and yeah, they should get to have this, too.

It’s close to noon when she asks him sweetly if he’ll go get them coffee and maybe something to eat. He kisses her because he thinks he can, that he’s allowed, pulls on his robe and grabs his phone from his pants on the floor to check messages. There’re a few, so he tends to those while the coffee maker works and the Eggos are in the toaster. When he rejoins her, juggling a plate and the two mugs, she sits up in bed, drops her phone, too, and holds the sheet up against her chest. 

He’s having a lot of feelings. He thinks, genuinely, that this is what he’s wanted for even longer than he’s been willing to admit it. She takes the coffee cup, holds it close to her like he’s seen her do probably 50 times before. 

And he can’t help himself. 

“Why'd you change your mind?” he asks a little too earnestly, sitting back against the headboard next to her. Her hand rests on his thigh like it’s the most natural thing in the world. All these little things - that she didn’t leave, that they talked about something normal this morning, that she wanted him again, _this_ \- are making him think maybe this is more for her, too. That she wants this, too. 

She looks like she’s thinking about it, considering her words. Which is just...a thing she always does, unless she’s scared or mad. She’s neither of those right now. 

She says, “I have feelings for you,” all softly, like it’s just another one of those facts, like something she’s sure of in this fucking place where it’s hard to be sure about anything. “And I don’t want to act, anymore, like this isn’t what I want.” She pauses, gives him this soft little look, as though she’s not sure how he’ll respond, or something. “Like you aren’t what I want.”

Harry leans over, kisses her gently, keeps his eyes closed after. “I want you, too.”

“I can tell.”

He laughs gently, looks at her like she’s being a smartass. 

“I’m a little crazy about you,” he tells her, and god, he watches her cheeks colour, her eyes do this thing he can’t even accurately describe. “For a while now.”

She takes a breath, closes her eyes as she smiles. He wonders what she’s doing, what she’s thinking. If she’s trying to lock this away as a memory somewhere. That’s sort of what he’s doing. Not that he thinks he could forget, honestly. 

She leans her head against the headboard, turns to him. 

“This is going to be a whole thing, you know,” she says, and he just...he shakes his head. He doesn’t want to think about all that right now. He likes this bubble, where they can be serious and honest but also aren’t thinking about the consequences, really. “I texted Will where I spent the night and he literally sent back _obviously_.” 

Harry laughs. Yeah, that’s what he’s thinking, too. No one’s going to be surprised. They’ve gotten a ton of information in the last few days - feedback on how they’re doing. Most people are rating them pretty highly. The ones who aren’t have good reasons and also suggestions and understand why things are the way they are, just want more, once things settle. Harry gets that. There’s nothing indicating they’re going to have a repeat of the incident. 

He doesn’t see how he and Allie being together would change how people see them. 

“We need a press secretary,” she says, and Harry laughs a little. “Director of communications?”

“Wanna hold a nomination, or take resumes?” She grins at him, scrunches her nose a little, which is cute. “It’ll be fine. People won’t be surprised. Pretty sure they all see the way I look at you.”

“Really?” she asks, deadpan. “And how’s that.”

He smirks, lifts his brow, watches her eyes do that thing they do when she thinks he’s being hot. “Like I either want to kiss you, or think you’re fucking brilliant.” She smiles too widely, then hides it behind her coffee cup. “Worst we’re gonna get is teasing from our friends.”

She takes a deep breath, finally reaches over and picks up one of the waffles. If they ever make it back to the real world, he’d love to take her on an actual date. With good food. He wonders what she’d wear. 

“You’re probably right. I’m still cautious.”

“Shocking,” he jokes, nudges her with his elbow. 

They spend the next two hours in his bed like that, talking, making out a little, her making fun of his robe. He takes it off, gets back under the sheets with her, which he thinks is really what she wanted. 

When she pulls that pair of little yellow underwear back up her legs so she can leave, he’s definitely watching, and then she spins around, eyes narrowed like she’s mad about something. 

“What?” he asks, laughing.

“The yellow heart thing,” she says, shaking her head like she still doesn’t know what he was referring to. Her name’s still like that in his phone, too. He likes it. Especially now. “Tell me.”

“When we were kids. You were like, eight, or something. You were walking around with this sheet of stickers, giving one to everyone.” He remembers it vividly. Mostly because he never stuck his stickers to anything. Afraid of wasting them. He kept them in the drawer of the desk that used to be in his room. Did nothing with them, ever. And here was this girl just giving them away. “We barely knew each other, but you came up to me and stuck this little yellow heart on my notebook.”

Allie tilts her head, smiles gently at him like she thinks this is a sweet story. And it is. Honestly, it’s his first actual memory of her. 

“Foreshadowing,” she says, but he can tell she’s just talking shit. She pulls her shorts on, then grabs her top and tugs that on, too. She leans down to kiss him. “Pretty cute of me, though.”

He laughs softly, nods, slides his hand up onto the back of her neck. “Incredibly cute of you.”

“Left a lasting impression. Maybe that’s what I was going for.”

“Mhm.” He honestly wonders how she’s so fucking pretty, even with her hair a complete mess and this little outfit on. “I think you’ve been making me think of you without even trying since then.”

“Shut up,” she laughs, kisses him again, slips her phone into her pocket. He just watches her, content, and honestly wonders how he could’ve found this kind of happiness in this fucking place, and not at home. “Come over later?” He raises his brow. He figured they’d see each other at dinner, but then maybe not again til tomorrow. “You’ve had me in your bed, Harry. I want you in mine.”

He agrees to it easily. He’s thinking he’s just going to keep saying yes to being with her. It’s what he’s been wanting. And god, when the request is that fucking promising, there’s no way he’s gonna say no. 

… … …

She’s hesitant to make any big changes until things feel settled after what happened a couple weeks ago. There are some quick wins they can implement easily enough, and they have the capacity to pull them off, and they don’t require a lot of thinking on process or policy. Allie appreciates more than she can say that most people - almost all of them - seem to be understanding and get that Allie and Harry are just trying to do their best to keep everyone safe and happy. There’s a small group of people who venture out through the woods to see what they can find, and happen upon this little grove with a bunch of apple trees. Harry makes a joke about the town’s first event being AppleFest, or something, and Allie...she’s not 100% sure he doesn’t mean it just a little. 

There are things that are going to take more time and thought. Like changing the work schedule so that people have actual _jobs_ and it doesn’t rotate. She still doesn’t know if it’s a good idea, but they owe it to the people who’ve asked to at least look into it. Brandon, Kelsey, Mel and Rob, who all know how to code, are working on a better inventory tracking system than what they’ve been using. Will’s training some people in the kitchen on how to actually cook so he can work fewer than six days a week. 

The next thing she thinks she and Harry are going to have to do is really dig into files in town hall and see if they can sort out how they got here, why, and if they’ll ever be able to leave. It’s honestly really selfish of her to have put it off so long because she’s scared of what they’ll find. 

She’s scared they’ll confirm once and for all that they’re stuck. 

She just feels like they’ve exhausted all other options, all the stuff Gordie and Bean were working on. All the stuff with navigation and exploration around the town. All the things Allie told people to do because she thinks it made them feel better. Not that she ever thought they’d really yield anything.

She’s waiting for Harry on the green, because he asked her to meet him here and said something about a surprise. She’s wearing a blue and white striped button down that she absolutely stole from his closet, tucked into her black jeans. He let her. He encouraged her. It’s from high school, he said, and doesn’t fit him anymore, too tight in the shoulders. It’s loose on her, but in a cute way, the buttons undone down to her breasts and the sleeves rolled up. It’s hot out, but this is linen, or something, so it’s kind of cool. She also just privately liked the idea of him showing up and seeing her wearing it. 

She can surprise him, too. 

He’s walking towards her, aviators over his eyes and a grin on his lips just like she thought he might look at her in this outfit. And he looks a little incredible, too. Not that she’s surprised. She just likes this look and has since the first time he wore it; black pants, white tee, denim shirt and sneakers. One of his obnoxious watches on his wrist. 

She can tell as soon as he’s 15 feet away that he wants to kiss her. She wants it, too. But they decided to wait a bit on this, too. On going public. Because she wants to. Her reasons are sort of hard to remember when he’s looking at her like that. No, just when _he’s_ looking like that.

“Careful,” he says, and like, so much for _hello_. “Might give people the impression you woke up in my bed this morning, or something.”

“Gross,” she says quickly, which is dumb and makes him laugh. He looks in the direction she’s been looking, which is towards the stupid fucking flame, still stubbornly burning as though it’s taunting her. Them. Mostly her. “What’s this surprise, then?”

“Oh, my god,” he laughs, shakes his head. He sighs, too, looks at her like she’s being...Childish, maybe? She doesn’t know. She’s in a good mood, so she doesn’t think it’s anything about her being snotty. “Is this how you greet all your dates?”

Her brow goes up, and she crosses her arms just to challenge him. “You’re my date, now?”

“I’m something.”

She tries to hide her smile, hums, and definitely, definitely thinks of this morning, when he’d told her he’d been waiting for her to wake up, thinking about how she’d said his name last night when she let go, thinking about how he wanted to hear it again. He’s just, like, really, really good at this. Even this romantic shit like whatever it is he has planned. She’s resisting it as self-preservation, or something, because she’s spent too much time already thinking about all her favourite places in New York and how she’d like to introduce him to them. She doesn’t know what _dating_ looks like here, but she can just imagine it’ll make her want more. That’s probably selfish. She should probably communicate that to him. But not right now. Not when he’s probably done something sort of sweet. 

“You look fucking hot, by the way,” he tells her, reaches out to touch her hair where it’s braided over her shoulder. She’s never worn it like this before. She doesn’t braid. She’s bad at it. Elle did it for her after breakfast when they were talking. 

“So do you.” 

She thinks he’s at least considering just taking her home. She wouldn’t say no. 

He glances up at the flame, sets his lips in a line. “Let’s...Do you think you can stop obsessing about everything for a couple hours?” She wants to argue and say she doesn’t _obsess_ , but he literally saw her staring at this thing like if she did it long enough it might tell her some kind of secret. “And just let me be a distraction.”

She can barely hide her smile, looks up at him from under her lashes. “You distract me plenty, and you know it.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, but then there’s something else there. Something sort of tender. Allie honestly wonders how long it’ll be before they’re just...really in love with each other. “But let me show you that I’m kind of good at this part, too.”

Allie knows her smile absolutely gives her away. He’s being kind of amazing, and she nods, agrees, because she thinks maybe she’s going to like whatever comes next. 

Bit of a trend, that is. Liking what comes next with him. 

… … …

They’re at her place, gathering some of her things because she says she’s tired of waking up and putting yesterday’s clothes back on and using his body wash when she takes a shower. She, hilariously, puts in a formal request for toiletries from the inventory through him, which he approves immediately even though he thinks them living separately at this point is fucking dumb and she should just bring all her shit here. But he also knows how he’d feel if she asked him to leave _his_ house permanently, and they’ve also only been together like, a month, or something. 

Allie’s stuff in his bathroom makes him feel normal. Having some of her stuff end up in his drawer is good, too. Knowing she falls asleep easily during movies, and she has this fucked up nightmare sometimes about Cassandra dying, and she really likes it when he plays with her hair. Though that last one is just a thing he’s assumed and less a thing she’s told him. He honestly thinks he’s just in love with her, but he’s never really felt that with anyone before and he’s not in a rush to tell her, even though she looks so fucking adorable sometimes he thinks the way he looks at her lets her know it anyway. 

He’s sitting on her parents’ bed as she goes through their closet, shamelessly looking for other pieces of clothes of her mom’s to take. Which he doesn’t really think she should feel weird about. He’s on his phone, because Bean’s saying something about work she’s doing to make something more efficient, and he’s got some questions so they’re having a back and forth about it. 

Allie opens a dresser drawer and moves some stuff around, and then she lets out this gasp that catches his attention, and she’s just staring at something. 

“What?” he asks curiously, because...Something’s got her a little shaken, and he’s almost scared of what she’s found. 

She lifts out this small piece of resin, this little translucent square, and holds it in her hand. He gets up to go look because she’s not saying anything. It’s a four leaf clover sitting there suspended in the block, and Allie’s, for some reason, speechless. 

“This was our thing,” she says, and he doesn’t get that, really. She looks at him, her eyes all shiny, this pretty smile on her face. “When we’d spend time together, just us, we’d look for one.” He assumes she’s talking about her mom. “Last year, she told me she and dad went on a picnic and she finally found one. She said she’d show me.”

Shit. That’s pretty heavy, isn’t it? Not only that her mom like, kept it and did this thing to preserve it, but that it’s here, that it’s...Fuck, it almost feels like Allie was meant to find it in this drawer. 

“That’s nice,” he says quietly, meaningfully, so she won’t think he’s saying this is silly, or something. She nods. “You should keep it.” 

She nods, sets it atop the little pile of clothes she’s got here. Then she puts her arms around him, kisses him gently, gives him this look he thinks he falls for immediately. 

She says, “Thanks for understanding,” and he just nods like it’s not a big deal, because it doesn't feel like one. 

… … …

Literally no one cares that they’re together. A few people laugh. A few people ask what happens if they break up. These are valid responses. Helena’s just smiling and rolling her eyes, saying something about how she’s had a hunch since that night with the wine. Harry grins and says, “About right, actually,” and Allie hates that she blushes and shoves his arm, absolutely giving them away. 

Elle trims the ends of Allie’s hair. The layers aren’t perfect and it looks a little janky until she cleans up a few sections with a pair of scissors she finds in what’s become her desk. Harry’s in the shower as she fusses with her hair, dropping what she’s cut off into the waste basket. She catches him staring at her in the mirror even as the bathroom steams up. 

They go outside after he asks her to cut his hair, and yeah, god, she read that book last week about cutting mens’ hair because he’s been begging her to do it, hates the way it’s long at the back and sits at his neck. She borrowed clippers from Clark, gets Harry on a chair with his shirt off and a towel around his shoulders. She kind of hacks away at it at first, and she can tell by the way he’s looking at her that she’s not doing a great job of acting confident about this. He seems a little pissed. Nervous, anyway. But she keeps at it, remembering the techniques from the book, using the scissors and then the clippers until it looks good, if not just a touch shorter than he usually wears it. Wore it. Before all this. She bites her lip in the mirror behind him as he looks at it, leans forward, runs his hand through it. 

“It’s okay,” he says, but he’s grinning in a way that lets her know she did way better than okay. It’s not perfect - she’s not a fucking barber - but he looks handsome anyway. When she tells him so, he says, “I know,” like that was never in question. 

“I could do yours next time,” he tells her, turning around, putting his arms around her waist right there in the stupid downstairs bathroom at his house. She laughs, but he just smiles a little and twists one of her curls around his finger. “Spend enough time with my hands in it. I could probably do a pretty good job.”

She doesn’t have a response to that that isn’t dirty, and they have some work to do. She just pulls away, lets him laugh at her as she leaves the bathroom and goes back to the office. 

They have a massive disagreement in a meeting that has the entire council holding their breath, looking between each other like they’re not sure they should be witnessing this, or something. 

“Allie, you know I’m right.”

“No,” she says firmly. “I know you think you’re right and you’re too stubborn to entertain other possibilities.”

He pushes a hand through his hair, looks annoyingly good doing it, even with this stupid scowl on his face. 

“Why don’t we take a breath,” Helena suggests quietly. “Why don’t we all write down the pros and cons of both options, and meet somewhere in the middle.”

Allie knows he hates this kind of shit. He thinks these exercises carry biases and he doesn’t like the results. But Helena’s a good mediator, has been doing an incredible job. 

When Harry sits back down, it’s far away from Allie. He leaves the table entirely and goes to sit alone on one of the pews with his notepad and paper. Allie watches him, scowl on her face, and she just...She’s absolutely not going to let him be distant over _this _.__

__She goes right over and sits herself across his lap. He puts his arms out like he’s both surprised and not sure how he wants to react, but her arms go around his neck and she leans in and kisses the hell out of him because she can and she wants to. He kisses back. She hears his notepad drop to the ground when he lets go of it so he can hold her instead._ _

__“Excuse me!” Helena laughs. “This is a meeting! And a church!”_ _

__Someone whistles and Allie pulls away, satisfied she’s effectively broken the tension, and gets up, goes back to her seat without looking at him. He just clears his throat and stays put, but when she glances up from her list because she can feel his eyes on her, he gives her this _look_ that lets her know he liked her little stunt. Lets her know what he probably wants after this meeting’s let out. _ _

__When they’re walking home, Lexie passes them on the street and says something about them being in cahoots, which is a stupid word and Allie thinks Lexie just hates her on principle at this point, and as such, has decided not to care._ _

__Harry just rolls his eyes at Lexie, tells her if she wants to lodge a complaint, she can do so through the council._ _

__Then, when Lexie’s back is turned, he puts up his middle finger in her direction, and then has to rush to pull it down when Allie laughs so loudly they get Lexie’s attention again._ _

__… … …_ _

__They’re supposed to be watching a movie. She wanted to and found his mom’s copy of Dirty Dancing on DVD, which she says she’s never seen. Harry has, thinks it’s fucking stupid, but she wants to watch it and said something about how there’s one last bag of microwave popcorn at her house and she’d steal it and bring it over if he’d watch this with her._ _

__But then he walks into his bedroom with the popcorn in one hand and the DVD case in the other, and Allie’s standing there pulling her hair up, wearing this black nightgown he can’t believe he’s only seeing her in for the first time now. There’re these little straps, and it must hit above the middle of her thighs because with her arms up like that he can see the curve of her ass and the matching underwear she has on._ _

__She clocks the look that must be on his face, because she tilts her head and says, “No. This is supposed to be a movie date.”_ _

__He laughs. “Should’ve thought of that before you put this on. Jesus.” He puts the bowl down, throws the DVD onto the bed and grabs her instead. “Where have you been hiding this all this time?”_ _

__She looks at him a little darkly, like he’s reacting just the way she thought he would, just the way she _wanted_ him to. _ _

__“I never really felt like I had to entice you with lingerie.”_ _

__He grins, moves his hand down onto her ass, flexes his fingers just a touch. “I mean, you didn’t _have_ to, but…”_ _

__She laughs, pushes him away, and yeah, the sight of her getting onto his bed, leaning back against a bunch of pillows with her legs bare and outstretched…_ _

__Honestly, he’s sort of surprised it’s her who’s saying, “This movie is bad,” like, a half hour into it._ _

__Like, sure, he _has_ been trying to entice her into turning it off. He’s been running his finger over the strap of this thing she’s wearing at her shoulder, and then also sort of dragging his thumb against her bare thigh, playing with the bottom of the fabric. And he’s absolutely been doing those things because this is the outcome he wanted. For her to pay attention to him and not this movie he’s kind of glad she agrees isn’t as good as everyone says it is. And yes, maybe she’s come to this conclusion just as he’s brushed his thumb over her hairline behind her ear, which he knows she loves. And maybe that was sort of on purpose._ _

__She looks kind of fucking stunning when she leans up, tugs her nightgown just a little up her thighs as she moves one over him so she’s straddling him. Yeah, this is going exactly how he wants it to go, but he thinks she’ll be bothered if he’s smug about it, so instead, he just watches her, puts his hands on her thighs, and likes the sexy, serious look on her face._ _

__She shifts her weight off him just a little, adjusting, maybe, but he takes the opportunity to slip down the bed a bit, lies so he’s flat on his back and she’s over his stomach._ _

__She bites her lip a little, which is maybe going to kill him, and he says, “Come here,” and she moves further, closer to where he wants her, right where he can get his mouth against her thigh. She reaches down, puts her hand in his hair, too, which he likes more than he can let on. But she knows it’s one of his favourite things; it’s not a secret._ _

__She pulls the fabric up more, rests her weight on his chest in a way that’s not unpleasant at all. He leans his head up just enough to get a better look at her underwear, at the way this fabric is draping over her thighs, the contrast against her skin making him sort of crazy._ _

__She’s not close enough._ _

__He pushes his hands up her thighs and tugs, presses her closer, says, again, “Come here,” in a low, commanding way that he hopes lets her know he’s sort of done playing._ _

__She looks down at him, all dark eyes and sharp breaths, and gives him what he wants._ _

__… … ..._ _

__Sometimes she can almost imagine they aren’t where they are and things aren’t like this._ _

__Sometimes when they leave the cafeteria after dinner, he’ll put his arm around her, say, “Let’s go for a walk,” and it’s just so unexpected that he’d want to that she just puts her arm around his waist as they wander. Sometimes they’ll go through his neighbourhood, but sometimes hers. One night, he says the porch on the Carter house is cute, and Allie gives him shit for making that sound so uppity. He rolls his eyes at her, takes her by the wrist, and they spend like, two hours swinging on the porch swing of this abandoned house, her legs draped over his and her hand at the back of his neck. It’s so fucking normal it makes her heart squeeze in her chest._ _

__Sometimes in his pool at night when they’re racing because she’s competitive and he just likes winning (and he assures her those aren’t the same thing), she gets all breathless from the swimming but then also the way he pushes his wet hair back off his face, the way the water drips down his shoulders, the way he looks at her like he knows exactly what she’s thinking._ _

__Sometimes he brings her coffee in the office, leans over and kisses her as he deposits it on her desk, and then goes to sit at his own, and he just looks all domestic and sexy and she thinks about living with him. Thinks she might want to do that. She knows in the real world it’d be an insane thought, spending a couple months with someone and then moving in together. She knows things with Harry would feel different if they were in New York living the lives they were until all this. But that’s not their reality and this is._ _

__And once...God, once, they’re going for a walk in the woods behind his house, because there’s a little trail back here he says doesn’t really lead to anywhere but is nice all the same. She’s wearing his high school sweater because she put it on as a joke earlier this morning when she was cold and then just liked the way it smelled like him and has his name written on the sleeve. They’re walking through the trees and the light is streaming in just so, and she starts to laugh at _nothing_ , and Harry glances at her like she’s crazy. They’re not touching at all, but she just had this really, really strong feeling of familiarity. Like she’s worn his shirt before. Like they’ve wandered through the woods before. It’s stupid and absolutely untrue. Maybe she just likes it more than she’s letting on. _ _

__She can almost hear him thinking as they step back into his yard._ _

__“What?” she asks, slipping her hand into his, liking the way he smiles at the contact. “You’re all in your head.”_ _

__“I just like you,” he says, and she...She doesn’t know where this is coming from, or what’s been going through his mind to make him all pensive, then say _this_. “I think I’ve always liked you.” She smiles and looks down, rubs her lips together because she likes him sweet like this. “It’s crazy, but I can really clearly imagine other ways we could’ve gotten together.”_ _

__Allie’s heart races, and she stops by the pool, pulls her jeans up and sits at the edge, dips her feet in. He does the same, sits right down next to her, close enough that she doesn’t have to speak loudly at all._ _

__She’s also thinking about what he just said, and what she felt when they were in the woods, and there’s something almost supernatural about the timing. She doesn’t want to mention it, worried she’ll sound like she’s losing her mind._ _

__“What do you mean?” she asks. Harry leans forward, his shoulders rounding a bit, and turns his body towards hers. It’s a little intense, the way he’s looking at her._ _

__“Like, in high school,” he says. “If I’d broken up with Kelly sooner.” Allie just nods, because like, god, she was always sort of paying attention to him, and she can’t say she wouldn’t have entertained it if he’d actually tried to _date_ her. “Or if we’d legitimately been friends first.”_ _

__She gives him a look. “We were legitimately friends first.”_ _

__“No,” he laughs, but it also sounds a little definite. “No, I was definitely always trying to get you to sleep with me.” She shouldn’t laugh, but she does. She’s neither surprised nor bothered by him saying it out loud. “It’s just crazy to think about. How vivid those possibilities are.”_ _

__She doesn’t know what to do with this, but she also isn’t going to tell him he sounds too intense, or something. Like, she’s in love with this guy, mostly, and she’s not going to make him feel badly for what he’s thinking or feeling. And there’s something familiar about the way he’s talking, and maybe it’s just that feeling she had when the sun hit her face and he looked at her the way he did back there. Maybe he’s just articulating it and she isn’t willing to._ _

__She grins, though, moves her feet under the water. “Maybe you just like the thought of me in your high school sweater, or something. Like some kind of teenage fantasy.”_ _

__“Mm.” He smirks, and she knows he’s probably going to say something sort of dirty. “Yeah, all my fantasies of you include this many layers.” He reaches over, then, sets his hand on her back, up under the fabric of his sweater like some kind of symbolic gesture. Some kind of intimacy he’s trying to convey. She just watches his face. “Definitely would’ve just wanted to get it off you. Find somewhere to make out with no parents.”_ _

__Allie laughs, turns towards him, her knee knocking into his. “That’s different from now - how, exactly?”_ _

__He grins, eyes dropping to her lips. “It’s not actually different at all, is it?”_ _

__Allie shakes her head. “You should kiss me, and then we should get back to work.”_ _

__Harry leans over, gives her a kiss that feels a little too quick. There’s a little headache blooming right at the edge of her temple until he pulls back, but it goes away when he stands up, reaches his hand down to help her up, and leads her towards the house, his thumb pressing right against her pulse at her wrist, familiar, too, in a way that she doesn’t want to think too hard about._ _

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading and leaving comments if that's a thing you do. 💜 Really it means so much.


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